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Bernhard  Weiss 


The  Present  Status 

of  the  Inquiry  Concerning 

the  Genuineness 

of  the  Pauline  Epistles 


v! 


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BSZGBO 


The  Present  Status 


Of  the  Inquiry  concerning  the 


Genuineness  of  the  Pauline  Epistles 


^ 


BY  BERNHARD  WEISS,  theol.D. 

Professor  in  the  University  of  Berlin 


1 


u 


CHICAGO 

Ube  'Qlniversiti?  of  CbicaQO  press 

J897 


Reprinted  from  THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL 
OF  THEOLOGY,  Vol.  I, 
No.  2,  April  1897. 


THE  PRESENT  STATUS 

OF    THE    INQUIRY 

CONCERNING  THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE 

EPISTLES. 

Since  the  end  of  the  second  century  thirteen  Pauline  epistles 
have  been  included  in  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament.  To  be 
sure  at  that  time  no  one  had  thought,  nor  was  anyone  com- 
petent, to  examine  these  letters,  which  had  for  a  very  long  time 
been  read  and  used  (even  if  not  expressly  cited)  by  ecclesias- 
tical writers,  with  a  view  to  determining  whether  they  were  what 
they  professed  to  be,  letters  of  the  apostle  Paul.  There  had 
never  so  much  as  a  doubt  arisen  on  this  point.  Only  in  our 
century  has  criticism  raised  the  question  whether  all  these  thir- 
teen epistles  are  to  be  attributed  to  Paul.  First  of  all  Eichhorn 
and  De  Wette  denied  the  genuineness  of  the  pastoral  epistles  ; 
but  doubts  were  also  early  entertained  concerning  the  so-called 
epistle  to  the  Ephesians  and  the  second  epistle  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians.  Yet  the  only  question  ever  discussed  was  whether  the 
epistles  were  to  be  attributed  to  Paul  himself  or  to  one  of  his 
disciples. 

Baur  was  the  first  to  reject  all  the  shorter  Pauline  epistles, 
accepting  as  genuine  only  the  four  epistles,  to  the  Romans,  Corin- 
thians, and  Galatians ;  the  others,  he  maintained,  could  not  have 
arisen  before  the  second  century.  But  even  in  his  school  there 
soon  sprang  up  a  reaction  against  his  position,  Hilgenfeld  again 
ascribing  to  the  apostle  the  first  epistle  to  the  Thessalonians, 
the  epistle  to  the  Philippians,  and  the  epistle  to  Philemon  ;  and 
all  recent  criticism,  more  or  less  independent  of  Baur,  agreed 
with  him.  But  the  reactionary  movement  thus  begun  reached 
farther  and  farther.  Holtzmann  set  to  work  to  prove  at  least  a 
Pauline  basis  in  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians  ;  von  Soden  reduced 
the  interpolations  admitted  by  him  in  this  letter  to  a  minimum, 

3 


4  PRESEXT  Sr.lTC^S  OE  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

until  at  last  he  surrendered  even  this  minimum  and  accepted  the 
whole  epistle  as  genuine.  As  for  the  second  epistle  to  the  Thes- 
salonians,  Paul  Schmidt  admitted  that  with  the  exception  of  the 
eschatological  passage  of  the  second  chapter  and  a  few  smaller 
interpolations  there  is  no  ground  for  supposing  it  spurious. 
But  when  it  came  to  be  more  and  more  believed  that  the  mean- 
ing of  that  Pauline  "apocalypse"  had  been  found,  all  considera- 
tions against  it  were  dismissed,  and  critics  such  as  Klopper  and 
Jiilicher  [Ei?ileit2ing,  1894)  without  further  hesitation  defended 
its  genuineness.  And  though  Klopper  at  least  still  maintains 
the  spuriousness  of  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  Jiilicher  declares 
the  objections  against  it  insuflficient  for  its  rejection.  Recently 
also  Harnack  in  his  Chronologic  der  altchristlicJicn  Litteratiir  (Vol. 
I,  Leipzig,  1897)  has  treated  all  ten  Pauline  epistles  which 
Marcion  had  in  his  canon  as  genuine.  To  the  pastoral  epistles 
only,  as  in  Eichhorn's  time,  all  recent  criticism  objects. 

There  is  also,  to  be  sure,  a  radical  wing  of  recent  criticism 
which  even  outstrips  Baur,  declaring  as  it  does  the  four  epistles 
unassailed  by  him,  and  thus  the  whole  body  of  Pauline  epistles, 
to  be  spurious.  When  Bruno  Bauer  first  came  forward  in  the 
middle  of  this  century  with  this  view  it  was  universally  rejected 
as  hypercriticism  hardly  needing  refutation ;  but  recently  sev- 
eral Dutch  scholars  have  returned  to  the  same  theory.  Among 
German  scholars  Steck  in  his  Galaterbrief  (Berlin,  1888)  not  only 
tried  to  prove  the  spuriousness  of  this  epistle,  but  also  rejected  in 
connection  with  it  the  epistles  to  the  Romans  and  Corinthians. 
Yet  up  to  the  present  time  he  has  been  opposed,  not  less  than 
his  predecessor,  Bruno  Bauer,  by  all  schools  of  criticism.  When 
even  a  critic  like  Holtzmann  declares  this  criticism  to  be  the 
product  of  a  mistaken  exegesis  and  a  historico-philosophical 
petitio  priucipii,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  as  yet  no  occasion 
for  entering  into  a  detailed  examination  of  it.  The  same  holds 
also  respecting  the  attempt,  which  has  been  more  and  more 
widely  spreading  of  late,  to  prove  more  or  less  extensive  inter- 
polations in  the  text  of  the  Pauline  epistles  transmitted  to  us 
(r/.  C.  Clemen,  Die  Einheitlichkeit  der  paulinischen  Briefe,  Got- 
tingen,  1894).     This  rests,  so  far  as   it    is   not   connected   with 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES  5 

critical  questions  which  we  shall  soon  consider,  upon  exegetical 
difficulties  that  exist  in  the  text  or  the  context  of  the  Pauline 
epistles.  But  it  is  clear  that  if  one  does  not  understand  how 
this  or  that  passage  fits  into  the  connection,  it  is  far  more  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  how  an  interpolator  could  come  to  interrupt  a 
lucid  text  with  interpolations  alleged  to  be  so  incongruous.  If 
one  discovers,  therefore,  the  line  of  thought  which  guided  the 
interpolator,  then  that  may  also  have  been  the  line  of  thought 
of  the  apostle  himself.  It  will  always  remain  the  task  of  exe- 
gesis to  understand  a  document  transmitted  to  us,  as  it  lies 
before  us,  and  that  this  is  not  impossible  in  the  case  of  the 
Pauline  letters,  I  believe  that  I  have  shown  {cf.  B.  Weiss,  Die 
paulinisclieji  Bricfc  im  berichtigteti  Text  mit  kiirzer  Erlduterimg  zum 
Handgebrauch  bei  dey  Schriftlectiire,  Leipzig,  1896). 

This  history  of  criticism  and  its  present  status  affords  abun- 
dant opportunity  for  a  number  of  fruitful  observations.  I  pro- 
pose, therefore,  to  go  through  the  series  of  the  thirteen  Pauline 
epistles  according  to  their  almost  universally  accepted  order, 
and  discuss  in  detail  the  critical  problems  which  have  arisen  in 
the  case  of  each  one.  In  doing  thus,  I  understand  by  "  critical 
problems"  not  the  grounds  of  doubt,  often  very  subjective, 
with  which,  in  the  period  of  the  criticism  of  the  Schleiermacher- 
De  Wette  school,  the  genuineness  of  this  or  that  epistle  was  dis- 
puted, since  these,  like  the  interpolation  hypotheses  named 
above,  are  mostly  refuted  by  a  careful  exegesis.  This  it  is, 
indeed,  which  the  criticism  of  Baur  and  his  school  achieved  for 
us,  viz.,  that  the  critical  problem  is  now  always  formulated  in 
the  question  whether  the  epistles  under  discussion  can  be  under- 
stood from  the  conditions  existing  in  the  time  of  Paul,  or  point 
to  a  later  period.  By  this  means  only  criticism  gains  a  higher, 
more  general  interest,  inasmuch  as  whatever  its  result  may  be  it 
leads  to  a  deeper  historical  understanding  of  these  documents 
which  are  in  any  case  so  highly  significant.  We  shall  there- 
fore first  of  all  discuss  the  questions  pertaining  to  the  circum- 
stances of  their  origin  which  appear  to  us  not  to  have  been  as  yet 
sufficientlv  cleared  up.  And  in  this  matter  even  the  extreme 
radical  criticism  may  become  of  importance  to  us  in  so  far  as  it 


6  PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

shows  where  even  in  respect  to  the  Pauline  epistles  generally 
held  to  be  genuine  historical  problems  still  remain  which 
require  a  more  thorough  investigation. 

I.      THE    FIRST    EPISTLE    TO    THE    THESSALONIANS. 

When  Baur  in  his  Paidus  (1845)  declared  the  first  epistle  to 
the  Thessalonians  spurious,  the  prevailing  conception  of  the 
epistle  furnished  a  certain  justification  of  this  position.  Until 
that  time  the  first  three  chapters  of  the  epistle  had  been  thought 
to  contain  only  outpourings  of  the  apostle's  heart  and  retrospects 
of  the  time  of  his  ministry  in  Thessalonica  and  of  his  separation 
from  the  church  ;  and  their  purpose  remained  unintelligible.  The 
short  admonitions  and  eschatological  discussions  of  the  fourth 
and  fifth  chapters  formed,  then,  in  reality  the  essential  part  of  the 
epistle,  although  one  could  not  conceive  what  was  the  purpose 
of  those  warnings,  which  aimed  only  at  keeping  the  disciples  from 
the  grossest  sins  of  heathenism,  and  of  these  discussions,  which 
involved  only  the  rudiments  of  the  Christian  hope  for  the  future. 
But  this  conception  of  the  epistle  was  even  on  exegetical  grounds 
untenable.  For  the  transition  4  :  i  with  a  Aoittov  ow  shows  with- 
out doubt  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  first  three  chapters  contain 
the  main  subject  which  the  apostle  had  to  discuss  with  the 
church,  and  that  from  4:1  on  he  merely  appends  such  admoni- 
tions and  explanations  as  still  remained  for  him  to  give  to  the 
church.  But  if  this  is  so,  the  main  purpose  of  chapters  1-3  can- 
not be  found  in  the  grateful  retrospect  of  what  God  had  hitherto 
done  for  the  church,  since  all  the  letters  of  the  apostle  begin 
with  that,  or  in  the  wishes  for  their  further  prosperity,  which 
always  follow  closely  on  the  thanksgiving  (1:2-10;  3:11-13), 
but  only  in  the  sections  of  evidently  apologetic  character  which 
stand  between.  The  understanding  of  the  epistle,  and,  conse- 
quently, the  guaranty  of  its  genuineness,  turns  accordingly  on 
the  question  whether  any  occasion  for  these  apologetic  sections 
is  perceptible. 

Evidently  this  self-defense  of  the  apostle  is  directed  against 
slanders  which  had  been  circulated  against  him.  The  young 
Christians  in  Thessalonica  had  been  told  that  they  had  been  led 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES  7 

astray  by  cunning,  ambitious,  and  self-seeking  impostors  ;  that 
only  thus  had  they  been  alienated  from  their  fellow-countrymen, 
from  whom  they  were  now  suffering  many  a  hardship  and  perse- 
cution. The  burden  of  these  hardships  weighed  heavily  on  the 
church  and  evidently  gave  the  apostle  great  concern,  since  the 
young  Christians  had  not  yet  proved  themselves  true  under  such 
a  test.  These  slanderers  declared  that  the  apostles,  for  fear  of 
being  involved  in  these  persecutions,  had  opportunely  abandoned 
these  whom  they  had  betrayed  and  given  them  over  to  their 
fate;  taking  good  care  not  themselves  to  return  to  the  church. 
Only  from  this  point  of  view  does  the  whole  section  2  :  i — 3  :  lO 
appear  in  its  true  light  and  receive  its  right  interpretation,  as  I 
have  shown  in  the  kiirzen  Erldiiterimgen.  But  the  question  arises, 
Whence  did"  these  slanders  originate,  from  whom  had  they 
issued?  This  question  has  not  yet  been  as  satisfactorily  and 
unanimously  answered  even  by  the  defenders  of  the  epistle  as  is 
necessary  for  its  complete  understanding. 

There  is  indeed,  both  in  the  apology  of  the  apostle  and  in  the 
slanders  which  it  presupposes,  much  that  reminds  us  of  the 
attacks  which  Paul  endured  in  Corinth  from  his  Jewish-Christian 
opponents.  Since,  however,  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  such 
opponents  were  to  be  found  in  this  essentially  Gentile  church 
only  recently  established,  Baur  was  right  to  a  certain  extent  in 
finding  here  only  imitations  of  the  epistles  to  the  Corinthians. 
But  he  neglected  even  to  ask  whether  the  analogous  phenomena 
here  could  not  perhaps  be  much  better  explained  on  wholly  dif- 
ferent grounds.  Such  a  commentator  as  Hofmann  and  such  a 
critic  as  von  Soden  {Theologische  Studien  U7id  Kritiken,  1885,  No. 
2)  assume,  to  be  sure,  that  those  slanders  issued  from  the  unbe- 
lieving Gentile  countrymen  of  the  Christians  in  Thessalonica. 
But  it  cannot  be  conceived  how  it  should  come  about  that  the 
converts  of  Paul  and  his  companion  should  be  at  all  affected  by 
the  opinions  of  those  who  when  the  Jewish  missionaries  were 
present  paid  no  heed  to  them.  All  becomes  clear  when  once  it 
is  recognized  that  it  was  the  unbelieving  Jews  in  Thessalonica 
who  during  the  presence  of  the  missionaries  had  sought  to  bring 
an    accusation   against   them    (Acts    17:5-8),   and    now  behind 


8  PRESENT  STATUS  OE  THE  INCJUIRV  CONCERNING 

their  backs  endeavored  to  undo  their  work.  They  were  able  to 
argue  that  they  themselves  surely  knew  their  own  countrymen 
better  than  these  Gentiles  newly  converted  to  Christianity,  and 
knowing  them  were  in  a  position  to  affirm  that  they  were 
deceivers  and  betrayers. 

This  suggestion  is,  moreover,  obviously  confirmed  by  the 
passage  2:15  ff.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  current  con- 
ception of  the  epistle  Baur  was  right  in  declaring  that  the 
polemic  against  the  Jews,  which  here  suddenly  breaks  up  all 
connection,  was  wholly  unintelligible  ;  and  quite  recently  Schmie- 
del,  who  likewise  thinks  the  slanders  emanated  rather  from  the 
Gentiles,  has  proposed  to  strike  out  these  verses  as  a  gloss.  If, 
however,  the  attacks  emanated  from  the  unbelieving  Jews,  then 
it  is  clear  why  Paul  ranks  these  slanders  here  with  the  efforts  of 
the  ungodly  haters  of  the  Gentiles  who  had  tried  on  all  occa- 
sions and  in  every  way  to  obstruct  his  work  of  salvation  among 
the  heathen.  Only  from  this  point  of  view,  moreover,  is  it 
possible  to  see  why  this  severe  polemic  against  the  Jews  closes 
with  the  statement  that  they  had  no  need  still  further  to  fill  up 
the  measure  of  their  sins  by  persecuting  the  messengers  to 
the  Gentiles,  the  [divine]  wrath  having  already  come  upon 
them  to  the  uttermost  (vs.  16).  So  long  as  these  words  were 
referred  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  it  followed,  of  course, 
that  the  epistle  could  not  have  been  written  by  Paul,  since  he 
did  not  live  long  enough  to  witness  this  event.  Even  more 
recent  defenders  of  the  epistle  make  only  random  conjectures 
to  account  for  these  words.  And  yet  there  is  but  one  clear 
and  sure  interpretation  of  them,  and  this  recent  critics  also,  like 
von  Soden  and  Jiilicher,  have  accepted.  As  Paul  in  Romans, 
chap.  I,  sees  the  revelation  of  the  divine  wrath  against  the 
heathen  world  in  its  surrender  to  the  folly  of  idolatry,  to 
unnatural  lust,  and  to  a  complete  deadening  of  the  moral  sense, 
so  he  sees  the  wrath  of  God  poured  out  upon  unbelieving  Israel 
in  the  judgment  of  hardening,  of  which  he  speaks  in  Rom.  11:7; 
2  Cor.  3  :  14. 

All  that  Paul  says  (chap,  i)  in  praise  of  the  Christian  stand- 
ing of  the  Thessalonians  and  of  the  fame  of  their  conversion  to 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES  9 

Christianity  is  explained  from  the  fact  that  he  desires,  by- 
reference  to  the  divine  origin  of  their  Christianity  and  to  the 
duty  of  guarding  their  good  repute,  to  admonish  them  to  endure 
with  patience  the  persecutions  that  have  befallen  them.  For  mani- 
festly their  life  as  believers  (for  their  perfecting  in  which  he  prays 
in  3:10)  is  deficient  precisely  in  the  fact  that  it  still  lacks  that 
joyfulness  which  resists  the  trials  of  misfortune  and  which  alone 
could  establish  their  faith  amid  such  trials.  Further,  the 
admonitions  of  chap.  4  show  that  the  church  was  still  lack- 
ing in  the  expression  of  its  faith  in  practical  life ;  that  they 
still  needed  the  warning  against  falling  back  into  the  old  Gen- 
tile sins  of  unchastity  and  avarice  (4  :  3-8).  But  it  is  just  this 
that  shows  that  we  have  here  the  picture  of  a  church  still  young, 
much  admired  for  the  enthusiasm  with  which  it  had  received  the 
gospel,  but  now  weighed  down  under  the  long  continued  perse- 
cutions and  not  yet  sufficiently  confirmed  in  moral  life  —  a  pic- 
ture which  no  imitator  of  the  apostle  could  invent  and  which 
is  therefore  in  itself  a  guaranty  of  the  genuineness  of  the 
epistle. 

The  eschatological  discussions  also  (4:  13 — 5  :  11)  are  easily 
understood  if  the  pressure  of  persecution  had  raised  to  the 
highest  pitch  the  desire  for  the  return  of  the  Lord,  which  alone 
could  bring  release.  Exhortations,  like  5  :  19  ff.  carry  us  into 
the  midst  of  church  meetings  roused  to  the  highest  pitch  of 
feeling  through  such  eschatological  expectations.  Prophets  rise 
up  who  under  a  fanatical  excitement  declare  the  nearness  of  the 
second  coming,  while  others  oppose  them  with  sober  criticism, 
and,  because  prophecy  had  overstepped  the  bounds  marked  out 
for  it,  disparage  it  in  general.  Therefore  the  apostle  is  obliged 
to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  day  and  hour  of  the  parousia 
is  and  will  remain  unknown,  and  that  we  have  only  to  take 
care  that  that  time  find  us  not  unprepared  (5:1-10).  There 
were  those  also  who  under  the  influence  of  unwarranted  expec- 
tation left  their  daily  work  professedly  to  spend  their  time  in 
preparing  for  the  parousia,  which,  as  they  thought,  would  end 
all  things,  thus  becoming  a  burden  on  the  charity  of  the  church 
and  even  on  that  of  their  heathen  countrymen.    These  are   those 


10        PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

araKToi  wliom  Paul  (5  :  14)  exhorts  the  church  to  admonish  and 
to  whom  he  directs  his  exhortation  that,  even  when  they  do  not 
themselves  believe  it  necessary,  they  shall  by  all  means  work 
zealously,  in  order  to  be  always  gaining  new  means  for  more 
extensive  labors  of  love,  and  not  in  the  eyes  of  their  unbeliev- 
ing countrymen  to  bring  disgrace  upon  Christianity  through 
their  idleness  and  beggary  (4:  10-12). 

The  discussion  that  follows  (4  :  13-18),  containing  the  most 
weighty  eschatological  material,  brings  us  to  the  last  point ;  and 
here  also  the  epistle  can  be  understood  only  in  case  it  is  genuine. 
Manifestly  the  church  which  at  first,  like  Paul  himself,  had 
hoped  while  yet  in  its  entirety  to  witness  the  parousia  had 
through  the  first  cases  of  death  which  occurred  in  its  member- 
ship been  thrown  into  the  greatest  distress.  Since  it  cannot  be 
supposed  that  a  pseudonymous  writer  would  make  the  apostle 
speak  as  if  he  hoped  himself  to  be  alive  at  the  parousia  (whereas 
he  actually  passed  away  before  that  event)  the  alarm  implied  in 
4  :  1 3  is  wholly  inexplicable  as  the  product  of  a  period  subse- 
quent to  that  of  the  apostle,  since  the  Christians  of  later  times 
must  certainly  in  some  way  have  come  to  accept  the  fact  that 
many  would  not  survive  to  witness  the  parousia.  When  the 
resurrection  had  become  a  permanent  part  of  the  common  hope 
of  Christianity  for  the  future,  nothing  could  have  been  gained 
by  an  appeal  to  the  awakening  of  those  who  sleep  preceding  the 
glorification  of  those  who  survive.  These  discussions  can  be 
understood  only  on  the  assumption  that  the  apostle  is  explain- 
ing these  things  in  detail  to  a  new  church,  to  which  he,  believ- 
ing the  parousia  to  be  near  at  hand,  had  as  yet  had  no  occasion 
to  speak  of  the  fate  of  those  who  might  perhaps  die  before 
that  event,  or  to  a  congregation  in  which  the  antipathy  of  the 
Hellenic  mind  to  the  idea  of  resurrection  (<r/  Acts  17:32;  i 
Cor.  15:12)  had  prevented  their  hearing  or  understanding  his 
allusions  to  this  element  of  Christian  doctrine.  It  will  then  also 
appear  what  "word  of  the  Lord"  it  is  to  which  Paul  appeals; 
and  this  is  all  the  more  important  because  those  who  have 
attempted  to  refer  the  epistle  to  a  later  time  have  taken  advan- 
tage of  the  prevalent  doubt  regarding  this  "word."     Inasmuch  as 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES        1 1 

the  apostle  by  no  means  asserts  that  this  word  of  the  Lord  con- 
tains all  that  he  set  forth  (vs.  i6  ff.) ,  but  only  afifirms  on  the 
authority  of  it  that  those  who  survive  will  not  precede  those 
who  sleep,  it  is  entirely  sufficient  to  refer  to  Matt.  24  :  31,  where 
Jesus  promises  at  his  parousia  to  gather  his  elect  about  himself 
from  the  four  winds,  hence  all  together.  Second  Thessalonians 
also  makes  allusion  to  this  promise  (2:1). 

If  thus  the  genuineness  of  the  epistle  appears  fully  con- 
firmed, this  yields  from  another  point  of  view  a  highly  impor- 
tant result  for  the  criticism  of  the  Pauline  epistles  in  general.  It 
was  one  of  the  fundamental  errors  of  Baur's  criticism  that  a  doc- 
trinal system  based  on  the  four  epistles  accepted  by  him  was 
made  the  standard  for  determining  what  else  should  be  recog- 
nized as  Pauline.  But  those  letters  indeed  show  a  form  of  teach- 
ing so  related  in  content  and  expression  only  because  the  epistles 
to  the  Galatians  and  Corinthians  are  directed  toward  the  same 
Jewish-Christian  opposition,  while  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  rep- 
resents the  results  of  that  same  struggle.  Besides,  all  four  were 
written  in  a  period  of  three  and  one-half  years,  three  of  them 
within  a  period  of  less  than  a  year.  And  yet  the  doctrine  of 
salvation  characteristic  of  the  apostle  even  in  them  varies  greatly 
in  proportion  and  degree,  while  uniform  development  in  other 
doctrinal  topics  is  out  of  the  question.  But  it  is  in  itself  con- 
trary to  all  historical  probability  that  Paul  immediately  upon  his 
conversion  worked  out  an  original  system  of  doctrine,  or  even  that 
doctrine  of  salvation  which  later  was  developed  in  so  profound  a 
way.  When,  in  Gal.  i  :  23,  we  read  that  the  churches  of  Judea  had 
heard  say  :  "  He  that  once  persecuted  us  now  preacheth  the  faith 
of  which  he  once  made  havoc,"  it  is  evident  that  at  this  time 
there  must  have  been  no  essential  difference  between  his  type  of 
doctrine  and  that  of  the  original  apostles.  It  was  probably 
rather  the  struggle  with  the  Judaizer  that  forced  him  to  develop 
his  doctrine  of  salvation  with  such  precision  and  sharpness,  and  to 
elaborate  all  its  premises  and  consequences,  and  to  express  it  in 
such  bold  propositions  and  striking  terminology. 

That  such  was  in  fact  the  case  the  first  epistle  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians proves  most  clearly.      It  is  extremely  interesting  to  see 


12         PKESEAT  STATUS  OF  THE  INCJUIRY  CONCERNIiXG 

how  assiduously  the  most  recent  defenders  of  the  epistles,  Paul 
Schmidt  and  von  Soden,  reject  the  idea  that  it  contains  an  unde- 
veloped form  of  Pauline  doctrine ;  and  yet  this  is  unquestion- 
ably the  fact.  It  is,  of  course,  true  that  even  here  those  pecul- 
iarities of  his  doctrine  which  are  connected  with  the  peculiar 
character  of  his  conversion  come  to  light.  Christ,  of  course,  is 
to  him  the  exalted  Lord  from  whom  comes  all  salvation  just  as 
from  God  himself;  but  there  are  no  Christological  statements 
furnishing  more  explicit  information  of  the  nature  and  origin  of 
his  person  ;  there  is  no  detailed  exposition  of  the  atoning  sig- 
nificance of  his  death,  which  is  touched  upon  only  in  a  general 
statement,  such  as  5  :  10.  Of  course,  even  thus  early  Christianity 
is  to  him  a  divine  dispensation  of  grace,  but  nowhere  is  the 
inability  of  the  natural  man  to  work  out  his  own  salvation,  which 
such  a  doctrine  called  for,  explained  or  traced  back  to  the  power 
of  sin  in  the  flesh  ;  of  justification  by  faith  and  not  by  works 
there  is  nowhere  any  mention  ;  nor  is  the  attitude  of  the  Chris- 
tian toward  the  law  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  relation  of  Jew 
and  Gentile  to  salvation  in  Christ  spoken  of,  although  the  way  in 
which  the  unbelieving  Jews  tried  to  undermine  Paul's  work  must 
certainly  have  furnished  occasion  enough  for  it.  The  doctrine  of 
the  Spirit  who  through  the  Word  produces  faith  in  the  elect,  and 
the  new  life  in  the  believer,  already  has,  it  is  true,  an  important 
place  ;  but  of  the  vital  fellowship  with  Christ,  secured  by  the 
Spirit,  of  the  completion  of  salvation  guaranteed  by  him,  which 
gave  to  the  apostle's  developed  system  of  thought  such  a  pecul- 
iar stamp,  there  is  as  yet  no  trace.  So  much  is  certain  :  The 
critic  who  makes  the  theology  of  the  four  great  doctrinal  and 
controversial  epistles  the  standard  for  all  that  is  to  be  recog- 
nized as  Pauline  cannot  accept  the  first  epistle  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians  as  genuine.  In  this  Baur  has  been  more  consistent  than 
the  more  recent  criticism,  which  declares  this  epistle  to  be 
genuine,  and  then,  nevertheless,  rejects  as  spurious  other  epistles 
which  in  a  much  higher  measure  than  it  bear  the  stamp  of 
developed  Paulinism,  because  they  are  unwilling  to  admit  that 
there  was  an  advance  beyond  the  point  of  view  of  the  four  great 
epistles. 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES         I  3 
II.    THE    SECOND    EPISTLE    TO    THE    THESSALONIANS. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  see  how  the  epistles  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians  still  show  clear  traces  of  the  fact  that  Paul  began  in  them 
his  correspondence  with  his  churches.  Even  the  so-called 
address  of  the  epistles  shows  a  form  much  simpler,  and  in  many 
respects  peculiar,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  later  epistles 
which  the  address  of  the  second  approaches  in  one  particular. 
In  the  first  epistle  the  apostle  enjoins  the  officers  in  whose 
charge  the  letter  was  sent  to  read  it  to  the  whole  body  of  the 
brethren,  consequently  in  full  church  assembly  (5:27).  In  the 
second  he  hints  at  a  misuse  which  had  been  made  of  letters  pro- 
fessedly written  by  himself  (2:2),  and  declares  that,  therefore, 
he  intends  henceforth  to  certify  each  one  of  his  letters  with  a 
subscription  in  his  own  handwriting  (3:17).  In  view  of  this 
fact,  Weizsacker,  who  still  regards  our  letter  as  spurious,  admits 
that  it  certainly  becomes  thereby  an  actual  forgery.  We  can 
no  longer  speak  in  this  case  of  pseudonymous  writing,  alleged 
in  Christian  antiquity  to  have  been  a  wholly  innocuous  proceed- 
ing; here  is  a  shrewd  forgery  which  endeavors,  by  means  of 
marks  of  genuineness  borrowed  from  the  later  Pauline  epistles 
(r/  I  Cor.  16:21),  to  stamp  a  forged  document  as  an  epistle 
of  Paul. 

Recent  criticism  has  been  unprejudiced  enough  to  acknowl- 
edge that,  perhaps  with  the  exception  of  the  eschatological 
section  in  chap.  2,  there  is  no  reason  for  den^-ing  the  epistle  to 
the  apostle.  Since  Ewald  the  attempt  has  repeatedly  been  made 
to  reverse  the  order  of  the  two  epistles.  In  fact,  however,  not 
only  is  this  indefensible,  but  the  second  letter,  by  its  relation  to 
the  first,  discloses  a  situation  so  transparent  that  this  itself 
vouches  for  the  genuineness  of  the  letter.  It  was  written  soon 
after  the  first,  to  which  2:15  clearly  refers.  The  church  has 
remained  true,  but  the  increased  burden  of  persecution  has  also 
increased  the  enthusiastic  expectation  of  the  parousia  to  its  high- 
est pitch.  The  apostle  is  obliged  to  say  to  them  that  they  appear 
to  have  forgotten  entirely  what  signs  must  necessarily  precede  the 
appearance  of  the  Lord.       Those  religious  idlers  whom   the  first 


14        PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

epistle  more  indirectly  reprimands  compel  him,  by  their  failure 
to  return  to  their  duty,  to  inflict  on  them  some  disciplinary  pun- 
ishment. No  motive  can  be  discovered  which  would  explain 
the  forging  of  such  a  document  in  the  name  of  an  apostle.  The 
numerous  similarities  to  the  first  epistle  are  explained  by  the  fact 
that  the  second  was  written  very  soon  after  the  first ;  but  it 
must  be  conceded  that,  if  grounds  of  suspicion  in  other  respects 
are  produced,  these  can  be  ascribed  to  imitation.  And  if 
umbrage  is  to  be  taken  at  every  peculiar  expression  the  epistle 
will  afford  o{)portunity  for  this  also.  Attention  has  been  called 
to  the  expression  o<^etXo/i,ev  tixapta-TeXv,  repeatedly  occurring  in  the 
second  epistle  (1:3;  2  :  13) ,  whereas  the  first  epistle,  like  all 
others,  says  cvxo-pLcrTovixev  (1:2;  2:13);  to  3:15,  6  Kvpios  t^5 
elprjvrj'i,  and  2:13,  rjyaTrrjp-evoi  vtto  Kvpiov,  instead  of  which  the  first 
epistle  writes  6  ^e6s  t^?  eiprjvr]<;  (5  •  23)  and  •^yaTny/xtVot  VTTO  Tov  6eov  ; 
to  the  anarthrous  terminus  techniais  rjfxepa  Kvpiov  (i  Thess.  5:2), 
which  appears  in  the  second  letter  as  rj  -^/xepa  tov  Kvptov  (2:2)  or 
takes,  as  in  the  gospels,  the  form  rj  rfp.ipa  iKeivrj;  and  these  diver- 
gencies have  often  been  regarded  as  indications  of  spuriousness. 
This  is  certainly  unjustified.  But  it  is  of  significance  that  recent 
critics  have  at  length  learned  to  take  no  notice  of  such  pecul- 
iarities of  a  document.  Thus,  for  example,  both  epistles  have  in 
common  the  expression  e/ayov  rrjs  ■n-ia-Tco)';  (i  Thess.  1:3;  2  Thess. 
2:11),  and  the  characterization  of  the  calling  as  a  continuing' 
divine  work  of  grace  (i  Thess.  2:12;  2  Thess.  i:  ii);  and 
yet  critics  have  taken  no  offense  at  the  first  epistle.  It  is 
very  instructive  to  observe  how  even  these  earliest  epistles 
show  each  their  own  peculiar  forms  of  expression,  in  comparison 
with  one  another  as  well  as  with  the  later  epistles.  Although 
Paul  certainly  developed  a  dogmatic  terminology  of  his  own, 
yet  it  never  became  anything  like  a  fetter  to  his  versatile  spirit. 
Every  epistle  has  in  this  respect  its  own  peculiarities,  and  it  is 
very  perilous  to  make  these  considerations  decisive  in  settling 
the  question  of  genuineness. 

Criticism  has  always  regarded  the  eschatological  section 
of  chap.  2  as  constituting  the  real  problem  of  the  second 
epistle   to   the   Thessalonians.      It   must   be  recognized,   indeed 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES         I  5 

that  the  contradictions  which  are  alleged  to  exist  between  it  and 
the  eschatology  of  the  first  epistle  are  easily  explained.  For 
that  the  day  of  the  Lord  comes  as  a  thief  in  the  night  (i  Thess. 
5  : 2)  does  not  preclude  his  coming  being  accompanied  with 
signs  whose  appearance  is  as  impossible  to  foresee  as  that  day 
itself;  and  that  Paul  himself  still  hopes  to  witness  the  parousia 
(i  Thess.  4:15)  does  not  demand  so  immediate  an  occurrence 
of  the  day  that  the  signs  predicted  in  2  Thess.,  chap.  2,  could  not 
precede  it.  That,  moreover,  the  unbelieving  will  be  led  astray  by 
the  Antichrist  (2  Thess.  2:  10  f.)  in  no  way  conflicts  with  the 
fact  that  they  will  live  until  the  dawn  of  the  day  of  the  Lord 
in  peace  and  safety,  and  will  have  no  presentiment  of  the 
approaching  destruction  (i  Thess.  5:3);  this  feeling  of  security 
only  facilitates  their  seduction  by  the  Antichrist.  What  the 
apostle  is  aiming  at  is  simply  to  call  to  the  minds  of  the  Thessa- 
lonians  what  he  had  previously  said  to  them  about  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Antichrist,  which  must  precede  the  return  of  the 
Lord,  and  about  that  which,  as  they  knew,  still  retarded  that 
event.  We  have  here,  as  in  the  Apocalypse  of  John  and,  in 
a  certain  sense,  in  the  apocalyptic  discourse  of  Jesus,  an  apoc- 
alyptic picture  of  the  form  in  which  godlessness  must  reach 
its  highest  point  before  the  final  judgment  can  be  ushered 
in ;  for  that  this  must  happen  first  Jesus  has  already  clearly 
declared  in  Matt.  23 :  32  £f.  Such  apocalyptic  pictures  must, 
however,  necessarily  relate  themselves  to  existing  circum- 
stances. Their  purpose  is  simply  to  interpret  the  signs  of  the 
times,  searching  for  the  point  at  which  the  hatred  towards 
God,  which  is  heaping  up  for  itself  wrath  against  the  day  of 
judgment,  will  manifest  itself. 

If  it  be  assumed  that  we  have  here  the  same  situation  as  in 
the  Johannean  apocalypse,  according  to  its  usual  interpretation, 
then  the  returning  Nero  is  here  the  Antichrist,  and  the  epistle 
could  have  been  written  only  after  his  death,  hence  is  in  no 
sense  a  writing  of  Paul.  To  Kern,  who  first  endeavored  to 
establish  the  spuriousness  of  the  epistle  on  substantial  grounds, 
this  was  the  really  decisive  argument,  and  the  same  was  true 
of  Baur  and  his  followers.     The  more  recent  defenders  of  the 


1 6         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

epistle  have  contested  this  view  ;  but  they  have  not  been  able 
to  overcome  it  because  they  started  from  a  wholly  colorless  con- 
ception of  the  Pauline  picture.  The  apostle's  picture  of  the 
Antichrist  expected  by  him  is  said  to  contain  only  general  fea- 
tures and  such  as  are  borrowed  from  Daniel  and  Jewish  apoca- 
lyptic literature.  There  floated  also  before  his  mind,  perhaps, 
a  picture  of  a  Roman  emperor  like  Caligula.  But  this  view 
takes  too  little  account  of  the  very  concrete  manner  in  which 
the  apostle  describes  his  eschatological  expectation.  He  speaks 
of  an  dTToo-Tacrta  out  of  whicli  the  man  of  sin  rises  up,  to  advance 
to  the  point  of  blasphemous  self-apotheosis.  The  apostle  knows 
of  a  "hindrance"  which  still  delays  this  development  and  com- 
pels the  avoji-ta  to  conceal  its  true  nature  in  a  mystery  until  the 
Kare'xwv  is  removed  out  of  the  way.  Then  will  come  the  full 
revelation  of  the  avo/A05  who  in  Satanic  power  leads  the  unbe- 
lievers astray  with  lying  wonders  and  every  sort  of  unrighteous 
deception,  but  whose  appearance  causes  the  immediate  return  of 
the  true  Messiah  who  brings  to  an  abrupt  end  the  career  of  the 
Antichrist  (2  :3-io). 

If  there  is  no  better  interpretation  of  this  picture  than  that 
adopted  by  the  more  recent  defenders  of  the  epistle,  the  evi- 
dence of  its  genuineness  must  be  acknowledged  to  be  weak. 
But  there  is  another  way.  Starting  with  the  interpretation  of 
the  Karexof,  it  is  pretty  generally  agreed  that  this  term  can  be 
understood  only  of  the  imperial  and  judicial  power  of  Rome; 
and  this  is  manifestly  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the  neuter  of 
the  word  "hindrance"  (xaTexov)  is  used  interchangeably  with  the 
masculine,  6  Karc^wv,  which  can  refer  only  to  the  incarnation  of 
that  imperial  power  in  the  person  of  the  Roman  emperor 
(2:6,  7).  But  in  that  case  the  view  that  finds  the  Antichrist, 
whose  appearance  is  retarded  by  "the  restrainer"  (6  Karc'xwv), 
in  a  Roman  emperor  or  a  character  copied  after  the  picture  of 
such  a  one  is  excluded  at  the  outset.  If  now,  as  is  actually  the 
case,  the  Johannean  Apocalypse  expects  the  Antichrist  (not  to 
be  sure  in  the  fabled  return  of  Nero,  but  in  an  incarnation  of  the 
Roman  imperial  power),  and  if,  as  is  clear,  the  reason  assigned 
for  this  is  that  in  the  Neronian  persecution  of  the  Christians  the 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES         I  7 

Roman  Empire  had  once  already  shown  itself  as  the  instrument 
of  the  hostility  to  God  and  Christ,  then  it  is  clear  that  we  have 
here  an  older  apocalyptic  combination  which  can  have  originated 
only  in  the  time  of  Paul.  And  this  is  confirmed  by  the  fact 
that  in  the  Johannean  Apocalypse  the  false  prophet  advances 
along  with  the  beast,  which  represents  the  Antichrist  himself, 
preparing  the  way  for  him  by  means  of  his  lying  wonders  and 
his  deception,  and  inducing  mankind  to  apostatize  to  him.  In 
Second  Thessalonians,  however,  the  Antichrist  himself  is  the  false 
prophet,  who  with  lying  wonders  of  Satan  and  fiendish  decep- 
tion leads  mankind  astray  (2:9,  10)  —  from  which  it  is  again 
clear  that  he  cannot  be  a  Roman  emperor. 

What  Paul's  more  exact  thought  about  the  appearance  of 
this  Antichrist  was  is  clear  from  the  relation  in  which  that 
appearance  (2:6)  stands  to  the  apostasy.  It  is  quite  out  of  the 
question  to  look  for  such  a  thing  in  the  realm  of  heathenism, 
which  neither  knows  nor  worships  God  (1:8).  On  the  other 
hand  our  epistles  nowhere  show  any  apprehension  of  an  apostasy 
in  the  realm  of  Christianity,  and  certainly  furnish  no  occasion  for 
thinking  of  such  a  thing  in  the  present  passage.  Thus  Judaism 
only  remains,  which  Paul  in  the  first  epistle  (2:14-16)  repre- 
sented as  the  incarnation  of  all  enmity  to  God  and  Christ ;  and 
which,  if  it  continued  on  this  way,  must  inevitably  in  the  end 
apostatize  wholly  from  God  (r/  Heb.  3:12).  The  consumma- 
tion of  this  apostasy,  however,  necessarily  involved  not  only  a 
persecution  of  the  true  Messiah  (in  his  confessors)  by  the  Jews, 
but  the  setting  up  over  against  him  of  the  false  Messiah. 
Therefore  the  false  Messiah  must  be  the  Antichrist.  This  apoc- 
alyptic picture  connects  itself  immediately  with  the  prophecy 
of  Jesus,  which,  as  may  be  inferred  from  i  Thess.  4:15;  2  Thess. 
2:1,  was  already  known  to  the  apostle;  only  he  thinks  of  the 
\f/€v86xpt(TTOL  and  {{/ev8oirpo<f>rJTai.  of  whom  Christ  had  spoken  (Matt. 
24:24;  cf.  John  5  :43)  as  culminating  in  the  person  of  the  false 
Messiah,  Kar'  iioxrjv,  who  is  identical  with  the  false  prophet. 
With  this  view  and  with  this  only  can  the  description  in  2:4, 
which  plainly  does  not  fit  in  with  the  apotheosis  of  the  Roman 
emperor,  be  made    to  agree.      Never    did    such    an    one,   when 


I  8        PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

causing  himself  to  be  numbered  among  the  gods,  set  up  the  claim 
of  being  higher  than  all  the  other  gods,  and  thereby  announce 
his  intention  to  contend  with  all  others,  as  it  is  asserted  that 
the  di'TiKet/u.cvos  Ktti  VTTf.paLpofjLtvo'i  eirl  -rravra  Xeyo/xevov  Otov  rj  aeftaa-fjia 
does.  The  very  fact  that  what  the  passage  speaks  of  is  rather 
an  assumption  of  equality  with  the  one  supreme  God,  who 
endures  no  other  gods  beside  him  (not  even  the  alleged  Mes- 
siah revered  by  the  Christians) ,  shows  doubtless  that  it  is  in 
the  temple  of  God  (at  Jerusalem),  where  he  takes  his  seat  in 
order  to  prove  thereby  that  he  is  of  divine  nature.  Unbeliev- 
ing Judaism  had  already  found  a  blasphemous  self-apotheosis  in 
the  claim  of  Jesus  to  the  Messiahship  (Mark  14:64;  cf.  John 
5:18;  10:33),  and  so  the  false  Messiah  sets  up  the  claim  that 
he  is  the  one  in  whom  Jehovah  himself  comes  to  his  people 
(Luke  1:17,  76),  and  who,  according  to  Mai.  3:1,  appears  in 
his  temple,  the  highest  revelation  of  God,  a  consubstantial  repre- 
sentative of  God. 

But  the  apostle  also  indicates  very  clearly  why  he  expects  the 
Antichrist  in  the  false  Messiah,  when  he  sees  (2:7)  the  mystery 
of  the  dvo/jLLa  already  in  operation.  It  surely  cannot  be  that  by 
this  the  immorality  of  heathenism  is  meant,  —  this  is  well  known 
to  ev^eryone,  —  but  only  the  Jewish  hostility  to  Christ  (i  Thess. 
2:15  ff.),  which  parades  itself  still  under  the  name  of  zeal  for 
God  and  his  law,  when  it  persecutes  the  messengers  of  the  gos- 
pel, and  is  nevertheless  in  its  innermost  essence  a  repudiation  of 
the  divine  will  (revealed  in  the  Messiah) .  It  was,  moreover, 
as  we  know  from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  Roman  judicial 
power  which  constantly  protected  the  apostle  from  the  attacks 
of  Jewish  fanaticism.  But  when  it  came  to  this,  that  the  final 
apostasy  of  Judaism  culminated  in  the  epiphany  of  the  false 
Messiah,  and  he  with  the  power  of  Satan  overthrew  the  imperial 
power  of  Rome  in  the  person  of  its  representatives,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  gaining  for  himself  and  his  people  the  world  power,  then 
indeed  a  path  would  be  made  for  Antichristianity  to  complete 
the  annihilation  of  Christianity,  then  would  the  measure  of  sin 
be  full,  and  then  the  returning  of  the  Messiah  must  needs  bring 
this  career  of  lawlessness  to  an  end.     Thus  the  apocalyptic  com- 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        1 9 

bination,  so  far  from  being  inconceivable  in  the  Pauline  time,  is 
comprehensible  only  as  proceeding  from  that  time,  when  unbeliev- 
ing Judaism  was  still  the  sole  enemy  with  which  the  apostle  con- 
tended in  accomplishing  his  world  mission. 

The  only  thing  to  be  urged  with  plausibility  against  this 
interpretation  of  2  Thess.,  chap.  2,  which  is  not  only  possible  but 
exegetically  necessary  is  that  Paul,  in  Rom.  11:25  f--  hopes  for 
a  complete  restoration  of  Israel ;  therefore,  it  may  be  urged,  he 
cannot  have  thought  of  the  Antichrist  as  being  the  product  of 
the  final  apostasy  of  Judaism.  But  as  these  apocalyptic  pictures 
have  always  historical  situations  as  their  background,  they  must 
also  change  with  them.  Time  and  hour  of  Christ's  parousia  no 
one  knows  at  all  (Mark  13  02);  but  it  is  to  be  expected  at  any 
time,  and  each  interpreter  must  therefore  seek  to  determine  from 
the  signs  of  his  own  time  the  form  in  which  the  highest  personi- 
fication of  the  enmity  to  Christ  will  appear.  Only  the  end  of 
the  days  will  show  which  of  these  personifications  is  actually  the 
final  one.  Paul  lived  long  enough  to  see  that  unbelieving  Juda- 
ism was  not  able  to  prevent  the  victorious  progress  (2  Thess.  3:1) 
of  the  gospel  throughout  heathendom,  that  quite  other  forces, 
within  Christianity,  threatened  its  development ;  and  it  is  one 
of  the  most  significant  signs  of  the  time  that  in  the  epistle  to 
the  Romans  he  has  returned  to  the  hope  of  the  complete  restora- 
tion of  Israel  cherished  by  the  primitive  apostles.  The  same  was 
true  of  the  apostle  John.  Under  the  vivid  impression  of  the 
horrors  of  a  bloody  persecution  he  saw  in  his  apocalypse  the 
personification  of  the  hostility  to  Christ  in  a  representative  of  the 
empire  restored  after  the  days  of  the  interregnum.  But  soon 
it  turned  out  that  this  power  too  was  unable  to  cope  with 
Christianity,  mighty  in  its  spirituality,  and  in  his  epistles  John  sees 
the  Antichrist  only  in  the  false  doctrine  which,  arising  within 
the  Christian  church,  denied  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God 
(i  John  2:18;   4:3). 

III.       THE    EPISTLE    TO    THE    GALATIANS. 

The  epistle   to  the    Galatians  was  the  Archimedes'  fulcrum 
bv  means  of  which  the  critics  of  the  Tubingen   school   believed 


20         PKESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

they  had  overthrown  the  conception  of  the  conditions  of  the 
apostolic  times,  handed  down  from  the  time  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles.  It  was  therefore  an  act  of  courage  when  Steck 
directed  his  attack  against  the  genuineness  of  the  epistle,  and 
though  the  positi\'e  arguments  which  he  believed  he  had  found 
for  the  spuriousness  of  the  epistle  are  so  weak  as  to  require  no 
detailed  discussion,  yet  he  has  shown  irrcfutabl}-  that  the  histor- 
ical conditions  of  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians  have  not  been 
determined  with  sufficient  clearness  to  justify  the  assurance  with 
which  the  Tubingen  school  boasts  of  its  genuineness. 

This  holds  true,  to  begin  with,  of  the  question  concerning 
the  founding  of  the  Galatian  church.  In  our  day,  as  is  well 
known,  Hausrath  has  revived,  and  others  have  defended,  the 
view  first  brought  forward  by  Mynster,  that  the  epistle  was 
addressed  to  churches  in  Pisidia  and  Lycaonia,  founded  on 
the  first  missionary  journey  of  the  apostle,  this  region  having 
been,  after  the  death  of  the  last  Galatian  king,  included  in  the 
Roman  province  of  Galatia.  But  the  adoption  of  this  view 
carries  with  it  the  assignment  of  the  epistle  to  a  chronological 
position  different  from  that  commonly  accepted,  and  requires  us 
to  suppose  that  in  all  probability  it  was  written  shortly  after  the 
beginning  of  the  second  missionary  tour  of  the  apostle,  in  any 
event,  quite  a  long  time  before  the  epistles  to  the  Thessalonians. 
But  although  Steck  maintains  that  the  location  of  the  Galatian 
churches  cannot  be  determined  with  certainty,  and  inclines  to 
the  opinion  of  Hausrath,  yet  it  must  be  regarded  as  very  improb- 
able that  Paul  should  have  addressed  the  people  of  Pisidia  and 
Lycaonia  as  Galatians  (Gal.  3:1)  because  they  at  that  time 
belonged  politically  to  Galatia.  The  only  argument  for  this  view 
having  even  prima  facie  value,  namely,  that  he  used  this  term 
to  gather  together  under  one  general  name  the  people  of  various 
districts,  is  an  utterly  worthless  subterfuge ;  for  Paul,  who  so 
very  rarely  addressed  his  readers  by  name,  was  under  no  neces- 
sity of  doing  so  here  if  he  had  no  fitting  collective  designation 
for  them.  Moreover,  the  churches  founded  in  company  with 
Barnabas,  and  before  the  so-called  Jerusalem  council,  had,  with- 
out question,  a  considerable  Jewish-Christian  element,  while  the 


THE  GENUIXEXESS  OF  THE  PA  ULEYE  EPISTLES        2  I 

churches  to  which  our  epistle  was  addressed  are  represented  as 
essentially  Gentile  Christian  in  character.  Nevertheless  it  can 
be  urged  with  a  certain  show  of  truth  that  although  the  exist- 
ence of  churches  in  Galatia  proper  is  presupposed  in  Acts  i8  :  23, 
yet  of  their  founding  we  have  no  definite  knowledge  ;  for,  accord- 
ing to  Acts  16:6,  Paul  seems  to  have  traveled  through  Galatia 
without  stopping;  so  that  the  assertion  that  Gal.  4:13  refers  to 
a  stay  there,  during  which  these  churches  were  founded,  appears 
by  no   means  to  be  established. 

But  this  is  simply  a  case  in  which  the  flagrant  carelessness 
with  which  it  is  customary  to  treat  the  statements  of  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  as  to  the  roads  which  the  apostle  traveled  to  Troas 
is  avenged.  There  is  indeed  no  question  that  the  Acts 
intends  to  describe  the  apostle  as  going  forward,  not  according 
to  his  own  plan,  but  driven  by  the  Spirit,  and  unable  to  tarry 
anywhere  in  Asia  Minor  until  he  reached  the  seacoast  at  Troas, 
where  he  received  the  divine  intimation  which  directed  him  to 
Macedonia.  It  is  expressly  said  of  Asia  and  Bith3-nia  that  the 
Spirit  prevented  him  from  preaching  there,  although  this  was 
plainly  his  purpose.  But  we  cannot  think  of  such  an  intimation 
of  the  Spirit  being  wholly  arbitrary  ;  and  since  Paul  later  repeat- 
edly emphasizes  the  fact  that  it  is  his  principle  —  his,  that  is  to 
say,  taught  him  by  the  Spirit  —  not  to  build  upon  another  man's 
foundation  (2  Cor.  10:  15  f.;  Rom.  15  :  20),  with  which  also  agrees 
the  fact  that  he  regarded  it  as  the  peculiar  task  of  his  apostolic 
office  to  found  churches  ( i  Cor.  3  :  10).  we  must  infer  that  apos- 
tolic activity  in  these  regions  was  forbidden  him  by  the  Spirit, 
because  there  were  already  churches  founded  there  by  the  primi- 
tive apostles  ;  and  this  is  expressly  afifirmed  by  i  Peter  i  :  i  with 
respect  to  Asia  and  Bithvnia.  To  be  sure  this  is  not  admitted 
bv  recent  critics,  nor  even  by  those  who  acknowledge  the  first 
epistle  of  Peter  to  be  genuine,  because  they  have  committed 
themselves  to  the  opinion  that  the  epistle  was  written  to  Gentile- 
Christian  churches  in  the  province  of  Asia;  and  yet  this  can  be 
maintained  only  by  extreme  exegetical  violence  to  the  address 
of  the  epistle.  In  the  entire  ancient  church  it  was  never  ques- 
tioned  that  the   elect   strangers   belonging  to  the  dispersion  of 


22         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

Asia  Minor  were  Jewish  Christians.  If  it  is  still  insisted  that  we 
have  no  knowledge  of  churches  in  Asia  Minor  founded  by  the 
mother  church,  this  overlooks  the  fact  that  outside  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  which,  according  to  its  plan,  deals  only 
with  the  Pauline  mission,  we  have  no  information  at  all  of  the 
extension  of  Christianity.  We  know,  however,  that  both  the 
primitive  apostles  and  the  brothers  of  the  Lord  had  actually  made 
missionary  journeys  (naturally  among  the  dispersion;  cf.  i  Cor. 
9:5);  besides  which  it  must  be  taken  into  account  that  the  seed 
of  Christianity  might  often  have  been  scattered  from  Palestine 
among  the  dispersion  in  other  ways  than  by  the  direct  mission- 
ary activity  of  the  apostles   themselves. 

To  be  sure  i  Peter  i  :  i  excludes  a  Pauline  mission  in  Gala- 
tia  as  truly  as  one  in  Asia  and  Bithynia  ;  but  Gal.  4:13  says 
clearly  enough  that  Paul  did  not  go  to  Galatia  to  do  there  mis- 
sionary work,  but  that  his  stay  there  when  he  made  known  the 
gospel  to  the  Galatians  was  occasioned  by  physical  weakness. 
The  intimation  given  to  the  apostle  by  the  Spirit  can  be  under- 
stood only  as  meaning  that  he  must  not  inaugurate  his  apostolic 
work  where  foundations  had  already  been  laid  ;  but  not  in  the  sense 
that  his  mouth  must  be  closed  if  for  other  reasons  he  stopped 
anywhere.  The  probability  is  that,  his  sickness  having  made  it 
necessary  for  him  to  stay  a  while  in  Galatia,  he  took  advantage 
of  this  enforced  delay  to  make  the  gospel  known  there.  Besides, 
Galatia  was  surely  large  enough  to  give  him,  even  outside  of  the 
larger  cities  in  which  the  Jewish  dispersion  resided,  opportunity 
for  an  extended  stay  and  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  among  the 
Gentile  people.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  ver}'  remarkable  that  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  does  7iot  say  of  Galatia  and  Phrygia,  in  which 
18  :  23  doubtless  implies  that  there  are  Pauline  churches,  that  he 
was  hindered  from  preaching  the  gospel  there  (16  :  6)  ;  but  only 
that  he  traveled  through.  But  the  reason  of  this  is  that  the 
writer  avoids  mentioning  the  fruit  of  his  labors  here,  which  fell 
to  him  only  incidentally,  in  order  to  represent  Macedonia  as  the 
real  divinely  designated  goal  of  his  missionary  journey. 

We  must,  therefore,  still  hold  that  Paul  founded  the  Galatian 
churches  on  his  second  missionary  journey,  and   when  he  visited 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES       23 

them  for  the  second  time  (Acts  18:23)  he  found  them  already- 
troubled  over  the  question  of  the  law.  If  he  hoped  simply  by 
emphatically  repudiating  all  efforts  which  had  for  their  object  to 
bring  them  into  subjection  to  the  law  to  protect  them  against 
such  errors,  he  must  have  learned  all  too  soon  that  his  efforts 
were  in  vain.  After  his  departure  the  situation  became  still 
more  threatening,  and  the  churches  were  on  the  point  of  utter 
apostasy.  Steck  is  also  undoubtedly  right  in  maintaining  that 
these  events,  as  they  are  represented  in  our  epistle,  are  difficult 
to  explain  if  it  is  genuine  ;  at  least  they  are  not  made  clear  by 
the  prevailing  conception  of  the  epistle.  It  is  commonly  thought 
that  this  first  trouble  of  the  churches  came  in  through  Jewish- 
Christian  agitators,  who  had  come  down  from  Jerusalem.  But 
there  is  not  the  least  indication  of  this  in  the  epistle,  and  in  fact  it 
is  difficult  to  explain  why  these  Judaizers  should  have  sought  out 
precisely  these  purely  Gentile-Christian  churches  in  so  distant  a 
region,  which  offered  them  no  vantage  ground  for  their  attack. 
So  far  as  I  know  Franke  {^Studiefi  tmd  Kritiken,  1883,  I)  is 
the  only  one  who  up  to  the  present  time  has  called  attention  to 
these  difficulties  and  sought  to  explain  the  first  perplexity  of  the 
churches,  though  to  be  sure  by  a  very  improbable  hypothesis. 
After  what  we  have  established  concerning  the  founding  of  the 
Galatian  churches  there  is  absolutely  no  need  of  any  special 
hypothesis  whatsoever  to  explain  this.  If  there  were  old-estab- 
lished Jewish-Christian  communities  in  Galatia  it  was  entirely 
natural  that  these,  who  on  their  side  held  fast  to  the  law,  should 
seek  to  induce  the  young  Gentile  Christians  in  their  neighbor- 
hood likewise  to  submit  themselves  to  the  law.  They  had 
nothing  to  say  against  the  doctrine  of  salvation  preached  to 
the  Gentiles  and  the  blessings  received  through  faith.  They  did 
not  at  all  enter  into  a  discussion  of  doctrinal  differences,  whether 
of  faith  and  works  or  of  universalism  and  particularism ;  their 
only  concern  was  that  the  Gentiles  should  by  circumcision  and 
acceptance  of  the  law  become  Jews,  it  being  impossible  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Jewish  Christians  that  the  Gentile  should  share 
in  the  fullness  of  salvation  promised  to  Israel  except  on  these 
conditions.     Paul  had,   however,   taught   that  all  the  salvation 


24        PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

brought  by  Christ  and  to  be  expected  from  him  is  obtained 
through  faith  alone  ;  and  when  he  found  them  in  a  state  of  unrest 
in  consequence  of  the  requirements  which  the  Jewish  Christians 
urged,  and  defended  apparently  on  so  natural  grounds,  the 
apostle,  without  entering  further  into  the  question  of  divine 
authority,  pronounced  an  anathema  on  all  who  should  preach 
any  other  gospel,  that  is,  on  making  salvation  dependent  on 
anything  else  whatsoever  than  faith. 

If,  now,  one  considers  the  apostle  mainly  as  a  dogmatician 
wholly  occupied  in  maintaining  against  the  primitive  apostles 
certain  theses  of  his,  his  course  in  this  matter  is  very  strange. 
When,  however,  we  observe  both  from  the  speech  at  Athens  and 
from  the  first  epistle  to  the  Thessalonians  how  simple  was  his 
preaching  of  salvation  among  the  Gentiles,  how  far  he  was  from 
comparing  this  with  the  law  and  the  Jewish  claims,  then  it 
is  easy  to  conceive  that  he  would  certainly  not  have  annoyed 
the  Galatians  with  a  discussion  of  questions  which  it  was  difficult 
to  make  perfectly  clear  to  them,  and  that  he  simply  pointed  out 
to  them  the  fact  that  the  gospel  which  deviates  from  that  brought 
to  them  by  their  apostle  was  eo  ipso  worthy  to  be  anathematized. 
Certainly  he  did  not  accomplish  his  object,  but  almost  the  very 
opposite.  And  at  this  point,  even  Franke  believes,  there  must  be 
assumed  an  interference  by  Judaistic  emissaries  from  Jerusalem, 
who  caused  the  change  in  the  churches.  But  the  epistle  con- 
tradicts this  most  decidedly,  unless  5:10  be  misinterpreted  in 
the  most  absurd  way.  How  can  Paul  ask  who  has  bewitched 
them  (3:1),  if  it  was  perfectly  evident  that  it  was  those 
emissaries  ?  On  the  contrary,  it  is  clear  (4  :  17  f.)  that  the  peo- 
ple who  now  court  them  are  the  same  that  he  knew  of  as  doing 
so  when  he  was  with  them.  In  fact  there  need  not  have  been  any 
direct  interference  on  the  part  of  such  Jewish  agitators ;  but 
because  Paul  had  based  his  repudiation  of  the  Jewish-Christian 
demand  solely  on  his  apostolic  authority,  it  was  obvious  to  ask 
whence  he  then  had  that  authority.  He  could  have  received  it, 
it  would  be  said,  only  from  the  primitive  apostles,  who  them- 
selves held  to  the  law  and  the  promise  given  to  Israel ;  and  if  he 
preached  a  gospel   which   refused  to  recognize  these,  then,   it 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES       25 

was  claimed,  he  changed  the  original  message  of  salvation  while 
they  with  their  demands  remained  true  to  it.  Thus,  therefore, 
Paul  was  forced  after  all  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  law  and 
to  prove  the  divine  origin  of  his  gospel.  If  he  had  received  it, 
not  from  the  primitive  apostles,  but  through  an  immediate  revela- 
tion (chap.  I ) ;  if  the  primitive  apostles  themselves  acknowledged 
that  he  had  been  entrusted  with  this  gospel  to  the  Gentiles  ;  and 
if  he  had  vindicated  it  successfully  even  against  Peter  (chap.  2), 
then  it  was  only  necessary  for  him  incidentally  to  refute  the 
allegation  that  he  had  received  his  apostleship  solely  from  the 
primitive  apostles  (1:1),  for  he  had  been  called  by  God  himself  to 
the  apostleship  to  the  Gentiles  (1:15).  There  is,  moreover,  no 
intimation  that  he  is  reminding  them  only  of  things  which  he  had 
long  ago  told  them,  or  that  he  is  correcting  misrepresentation  of 
these  things.  On  the  contrary  he  now  for  the  first  time  relates 
to  them  these  historical  events,  certainly  not  in  order  to  defend 
his  apostolic  dignity,  as  is  still  supposed  by  many,  but  in  order 
to  prove  the  divine  origin  of  his  gospel,  with  the  preaching  of 
which  he  had  been  entrusted  by  God  alone,  and  not  by  man. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  whole  subsequent  doctrinal  section. 
The  apostle's  purpose  is  not  to  defend  his  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion, as  is  so  often  assumed,  but  to  show  how  the  claim  that  the 
promised  salvation  is  secured  only  through  subjection  to  the 
law  completely  destroys  the  foundation  of  his  doctrine  of  salva- 
tion, which  bases  justification,  adoption,  and  the  inheritance  of 
full  salvation  upon  faith  in  redemption  through  Christ  alone; 
the  whole  Christian  dispensation  of  grace  is  denied  if  the  salva- 
tion promised  in  it  is  dependent  upon  any  human  work  what- 
ever;  and  in  confirmation  of  this  he  appeals  to  their  own  Chris- 
tian experience  (3:  1-5).  He  does  not  fail  also  to  show  how 
the  freedom  from  the  law,  which  accordingly  is  to  be  stead- 
fastly maintained,  does  not  permit  continuance  in  sin,  but  only 
secures  in  a  new  way  the  fulfillment  of  the  will  of  God  revealed 
in  the  law,  through  the  working  of  the  Spirit  given  to  them. 
Surely  if  he  preached  these  same  doctrines  from  the  beginning, 
Steck  is  quite  right  in  saying  that  it  is  entirely  inconceivable 
how  his  letter  could  at  one  stroke  have  effected  what  his  preach- 


26         PRESENT  STATUS  OE  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

ing  had  failed  to  accomplish.  But  the  historical  significance  of 
the  epistle  to  the  Galatians  consists  precisely  in  the  fact  that 
here  for  the  first  time  the  apostle  was  under  the  necessity  of 
exposing  with  all  logical  acumen  the  perilous  and  subversive 
character  of  the  seemingly  so  well  founded  demand  made  by 
the  Judaists,  and  of  proving  that  the  Old  Testament  itself  bears 
witness  not  for  but  against  this   demand. 

It  is  remarkable  how  radical  criticism,  which  controverts 
the  genuineness  of  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians,  has  only  served 
to  bring  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  back  again  to  a  place  of  honor. 
Steck  shows  how  the  assumption  of  the  Tubingen  school,  that  the 
Acts,  in  the  interest  of  its  "tendency,"  misrepresents  the  histor- 
ical events  which  Paul  discusses  (Gal.,  chaps,  i,  2)  is  thoroughly 
untenable.  Granted  that  the  Acts  was  insufificiently  informed  on 
many  points  concerning  the  early  career  of  Paul,  granted  that, 
in  accordance  with  the  pragmatism  that  dominates  it,  it  has 
represented  some  things  in  a  one-sided  and  therefore  incomplete 
way,  yet  in  estimating  its  variations  from  the  account  given  by 
Paul  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  Paul  also  presents  these  his- 
torical events  only  from  a  certain  historical  point  of  view,  and 
touches  only  on  those  points  which  he  can  use  to  break  the 
force  of  the  charges  which  had  been  made  against  him.  If 
it  be  regarded  as  entirely  impossible  that  Paul  should  fail  to 
mention  to  the  Galatians  the  restrictions  which,  according  to 
Acts,  chap.  15,  were  imposed  upon  the  Gentile  Christians,  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  has  invented  these 
things,  but  at  most  that  it  has  erroneously  combined  the  trans- 
actions of  Paul  with  the  primitive  apostles,  of  which  Gal.,  chap.  2, 
gives  an  account,  with  transactions  within  the  primitive  church,  of 
which  its  sources  treated;  on  which  sources  Acts,  chap.  15,  is 
clearly  enough   based. 

Still  another  point  is  made  clear  by  Steck  which  is  of  great 
significance  for  the  criticism  of  the  Pauline  epistles.  To  be  sure 
the  view  that  the  law  (3:19)  is  degraded  and  belittled  as  an 
imperfect  institution  given  by  angels  rests  upon  a  wholly  unten- 
able exegesis.  But  so  much  is  correct,  that  this  statement  about 
the  law  recurs  nowhere  else  in  the  Pauline  epistles.     And  if  only 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES         27 

that  is  to  be  accepted  as  Pauline  for  which  there  are  analogies 
in  the  other  principal  epistles  of  Paul,  then  the  same  considera- 
tions which  are  urged  against  other  shorter  epistles  of  Paul  may 
also  be  urged  against  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians.  And  this 
argument  may  be  applied  in  still  another  direction.  The  epistle 
to  the  Galatians  has  recently  been  explained  as  the  latest  of  the 
Pauline  epistles,  because  here  the  antithesis  between  Paulinism 
and  Judaism  is  at  its  sharpest  (r/.  C.  Clemen,  Die  Chronologie  der 
pauli7iischen  Briefe,  Halle,  1893),  whereas  on  the  contrary  nothing 
is  more  natural  than  that  in  the  apostle's  f^rst  daring  effort  to 
show  the  incompatibility  of  the  Jewish  claims  with  his  doctrine 
of  salvation  he  should  express  this  antithesis  as  sharply  as  pos- 
sible, even  if  later  he  found  reason  to  modify  it. 

It  is  remarkable  how  little  it  has  been  observed  that  the  chief 
differences  between  our  epistle  and  the  later  ones  pertain  to  quite 
a    different   matter.     Steck   has   very   correctly   seen    that   here 
Judaism  is  in  a  certain  sense  put  upon  the  same  level  with  hea- 
thenism, though  not,  to  be  sure,  in  the  way  in  which  he,  foUow- 
ino-  the  current  misinterpretation  of  o-rotxeia,  maintains,  but  as  a 
rudimentary   religion    such    as   we   should   look    for  at  an  early 
stage  in  the  development  of  mankind.      But  what  is  surprising 
in  this  is  not  his  judgment  of  Judaism,  which   he    has   all    along 
regarded  as  the  preparatory  step  in  the   economy  of  salvation, 
but  his  judgment  of  heathenism.      If  it  be  observed  how  in  Rom., 
chap.  I,  he  sees  in  the  present  condition  of  the  heathen  world  the 
judgment  of  divine  wrath  on  the  original  apostasy  of  heathenism 
from  primitive  religion,  how  he  in  the  first  epistle  to  the  Corin- 
thians sees  in  heathenism  an  abandonment   to   the    demoniacal 
powers  (10  :  20  ;    12  :  2),  it  must  be  admitted  that  this  estimate  of 
heathenism  is  certainly  wholly  different  from  that  expressed  in 
the  epistle  to  the  Galatians.      If  one   is    unwilling   to   assume   a 
development  in  the  views  of  Paul,  but  feels  compelled  to  ascribe 
to  the  apostle   a    fixed    and    permanent    dogmatic    system,   then 
either  the  spuriousness  of  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians  must  be 
admitted  or  that  of  the  principal  letters  which  follow  it.     But 
indeed  neither  of  these  positions  is  held  by  recent  criticism.     And 
so  the  fact  of  the  genuineness  of  the  epistle,  which  the  attacks  of 


28         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

radical  criticism  have  only  served  to  establish  more  firmly,  leads, 
if  we  take  occasion  from  these  attacks  to  make  a  fresh  investi- 
gation of  the  circumstances  that  gave  rise  to  the  epistle,  simply 
to  a  revision  of  the  general  principles  on  which  all  recent  criti- 
cism works. 

IV.       THE    EPISTLES    TO    THE    CORINTHIANS. 

The  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  similar  in  this  respect  to 
the  epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  contains  the  guaranty  of  its 
genuineness  in  the  fact  that  in  it  there  is  presented  to  us  a  pic- 
ture of  this  the  first  church  founded  on  Greek  soil,  which  shows 
most  vividly  all  the  excellencies  and  all  the  weaknesses  of  the 
Hellenic  character.  Hence  church  meetings  with  their  wealth 
of  spiritual  gifts,  of  which  vanity  and  the  passion  for  pre- 
eminence took  advantage  for  their  own  ends,  leading  to  strife 
over  the  superiority  of  the  various  gifts,  in  which  even  the 
Lord's  Supper  itself  was  profaned  by  the  existence  of  cliques  and 
gluttony.  Hence  also  the  fondness  of  the  Corinthian  Christians 
for  going  to  law,  and  for  associating  with  their  unbelieving 
countrymen  by  which  they  were  continually  entangled  again  in 
the  old  Gentile  sins  of  the  luxurious  commercial  metropolis. 
Hence  also  the  inclination  in  the  face  of  the  mockery  of  their 
fellow-men  to  sacrifice  even  the  belief  in  the  resurrection  ;  above 
all,  the  excessive  party  spirit  which  engendered  strife  over  the 
boasted  merits  of  the  various  teachers.  But  Steck  is  right  in 
maintaining  that  just  in  this  matter  the  real  state  of  affairs  is  far 
from  having  been  suf^ciently  cleared  up  to  enable  us  to  arrive  at  a 
full  historical  understanding  of  the  epistle.  Even  the  opinion 
that  we  have  to  do  here  with  various  parties  within  the  church 
is  by  no  means  dead,  and  cannot  be  refuted  so  long  as  one  fails 
to  recognize  that  the  so-called  "Petrinists"  (i  Cor.  1:13)  were 
really  pupils  of  Peter  who  had  been  converted  under  his  preach- 
ing. This  presupposes,  to  be  sure,  that  Peter  had  at  some  time 
come  to  Corinth  in  the  course  of  his  missionary  journeys.  I 
have  always  maintained  that  the  account  given  by  Dionysius  of 
Corinth  of  a  ministry  of  Peter  in  that  city  had,  in  spite  of  its 
rhetorical  exaggerations,  an   historical  reminiscence  as  its  basis, 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES        29 

and  Harnack  has  recently  unequivocally  acknowledged  the  very 
great  probability  of  this  view. 

But  the  so-called  Christ  party  is,  as  it  always  has  been,  the 
chief  crux  ot  the  exegetes,  and  of  late  they  are  disposed,  despair- 
ing of  its  solution,  to  get  rid  of  it  altogether  by  exegetical  or 
critical  expedients.  The  older  theories  about  this  party,  to  be  sure, 
being  without  foundation  and  mutually  contradictory,  accom- 
plished nothing.  But  Baur  years  ago  pointed  out  the  only  right 
way  when  he  combined  the  party  cry  of  certain  people  who 
said  of  themselves  :  ^y<^  [et/*0  X/oicttou  (1:12),  with  2  Cor.  10:17. 
It  is  also  being  recognized  more  and  more  nowadays  that  accord- 
ing to  the  analogy  of  the  party  cries  of  the  other  parties  this  can 
be  put  into  the  mouth  of  such  only  as  were  personal  disciples 
of  Christ  or  pretended  to  be.  But  while  Baur  regarded  them  as 
a  party  who  stood  for  the  primitive  apostles  in  opposition  to  Paul, 
Holsten  admitted  that  the  i/ievSaTroo-ToXot  and  VTrepXiav  aTroa-roXoi 
whom  Paul  combated  were,  according  to  the  context,  not  the 
primitive  apostles,  but  these  disciples  of  Christ,  who  on  the 
ground  of  their  relationship  to  him  made  the  claim,  as  against 
Paul,  that  they  were  the  only  true  apostles  ;  and  consequently 
they  who  made  this  their  cry  were  not  members  of  the  Christian 
church,  but  the  agitators  who  had  come  to  the  church  from 
Jerusalem.  Paul  does  not  at  all  say  (i:ii  f. )  that  there  were 
iouf  parties  in  Corinth,  but  that  disputes  were  there  in  which 
each  one  boasted  of  his  special  teacher ;  and  that  he  meant 
to  include  with  the  three  others  the  party  cry  of  the  disciples  of 
Christ  as  one  that  greatly  aggravated  and  embittered  the  conflict 
of  parties  is  made  incontestably"  clear  by  the  fact  that  at  the 
close  of  the  section  directed  against  these  parties  he  deals 
also  with  those  rtve?  who  boasted  that  when  such  people  as  they 
had  appeared  in  Corinth  Paul  would  not  venture  to  come  again 
to  Corinth  (4  :  18;  cf.  vs.  6).  To  be  sure  we  gain  our  first  definite 
knowledge  of  these  people  only  from  the  second  epistle,  but  it 
would  have  been  very  shortsighted  of  Paul  to  have  begun  his 
polemic  against  them  before  they  had  disclosed  their  ultimate 
aim  and  their  resources  for  accomplishing  it  (yet  c/.  g:  i  L). 

But  above  all  Steck  is  to  a  certain    extent  right  in  maintain- 


30         PRESENT  STATUS  OE  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

ing  thatftherc  still  remains  much  to  be  done  for  the  elucidation 
of  the  meaning  of  the  second  epistle  and  of  its  relation  to  the 
first  before  we  shall  have  a  firm  basis  for  the  proof  of  the 
genuineness  of  our  epistle.  And  at  this  point  the  criticism 
which  proceeds  on  the  basis  of  the  genuineness  of  the  epistle  has 
found  itself  becoming  entangled  in  a  maze  from  which  there 
aj)pears  no  way  of  escape  except  that  of  radical  criticism. 
Bleek  was  satisfied  to  assume  a  lost  letter  between  the  two  that 
we  have,  which  Paul  had  sent  by  the  hand  of  Titus  and  to  which 
our  second  epistle  refers.  That  was  indeed  in  itself  not  an 
impossible  view,  since  i  Cor.  5  :  9  also  undoubtedly  refers  to  a 
letter  now  lost,  sent  before  our  first ;  but  it  was  unfortunate  that 
the  controversy  over  this  question  should  immediately  be  con- 
nected with  the  question  whether  2  Cor.  2  :  5-10  ;  7:12  refer  to 
the  affair  treated  in  First  Corinthians,  or  to  an  affront  either 
to  the  apostle  in  person  or  to  his  messenger  which  was  offered 
on  the  occasion  of  the  visit  of  Titus  to  Corinth  ;  on  this  question 
the  various  defenders  of  the  hypothesis  of  an  intermediate  letter 
have  not  been  able  to  agree.  Furthermore  there  was  a  growing 
inclination  to  place  the  second  visit  of  the  apostle  to  Corinth, 
presupposed  in  the  second  epistle,  between  the  first  and  second 
letters,  rather  than  before  our  first  epistle,  as  was  generally  held 
formerly,  and  is  still  maintained  by  many  of  the  defenders  of 
the  intermediate  letter,  e.  g.,  Schmiedel.  But  Schmiedel  him- 
self,Avho  in  the  introduction  to  his  exposition  of  the  epistle 
in  Holtzmann's  Hajid-Commcntar  zicm  Neuen  Testament  has 
with  great  acuteness  made  a  thorough  examination  of  every 
hypothesis  that  has  been  proposedA  recognized  the  difficulties 
which  beset  this  theory  of  an  intermediate  letter,  and  was  com- 
pelled, reviving  an  old  view,  to  assume  still  another  visit  of 
Titus  to  Corinth  with  a  letter  from  the  apostle  ;  so  that  there 
were  two  epistles  between  our  first  and  second,  both  of  which 
have  been  lost. 

Finally,  the  complication  of  this  hypothesis  reached  its 
highest  point  with  Hausrath,  who  believed  that  he  had  found 
in  the  last  four  chapters  of  the  second  epistle  to  the  Corinthi- 
ans the    intermediate  letter  so  commonly    assumed;     in    which 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        3  I 

conjecture  Schmiedel  has  recently  followed  him  with  great 
positiveness,  while  other  defenders  of  the  intermediate  letter 
protest  emphatically  against  this  opinion.  This  was  the  signal 
for  a  general  attempt  to  dissect  our  second  epistle^  Even  earlier 
some  had  declared  the  section  6  :  14 — 7  :  i  to  be  spurious,  while 
others  thought  they  could  discover  in  it  the  epistle  written 
before  our  first.  Now  it  was  proposed  to  find  also  in  chaps.  8  and 
9  fragments  of  the  two  intermediate  letters.  Finally  Halmet 
thought  he  could  extract  from  our  epistle  still  another  epistle 
of  four  chapters,  2  :  14 — 6  :  10,  which  was  written  later  than  the 
first  (chaps.  10 — 13);  so  that  only  a  very  small  part  of  our 
epistle  still  remained.  'Thus  criticism  has  lost  itself  in  a 
labyrinth  of  hypotheses,  out  of  which  there  is  no  escape.  For 
it  is  clear  that  simply  by  newly  arranging  these  epistles  or  epis- 
tolary fragments  and  journeys  or  missions  an  equal  number 
of  new  hypotheses  can  with  a  little  acuteness  be  set  up  against 
those  already  advanced,  with  just  as  good  or  just  as  bad  a 
foundation  as  they.J  We  have  here  the  same  great  fault  of  our 
modern  criticism  that  is  manifest  in  other  fields  also,r.^.,  in  the 
criticism  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  of  the  Apocalypse,  viz., 
that  it  transgresses  the  boundaries  of  the  scientifically  demon- 
strable, and  confounds  the  products  of  fancy  with  scientifically 
established  results.  Had  the  facts  been  as  any  one  of  these 
hypotheses  assumes,  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  ascertain 
thein  with  scientific  exactness.  /An  hypothesis  is  justifiable  only 
when  the  documents  in  hand  imperatively  demand  it.  That  this 
is  not  the  case  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  every  hypothesis  requires 
a  new  supplementary  hypothesis'to  make  it  conceivable.  Even 
Holtzmann  has  said  that  the  close  relationship  of  the  second 
epistle  to  the  first  must  always  make  it  doubtful  whether  the 
interlacing  and  mutually  contradictory  hypotheses  of  unrecorded 
journeys  and  lost  letters,  which  of  necessity  extend  the  interval 
between  the  two  existing  letters,  can  be  substantiated.  We  are 
thus  driven  to  inquire  whether  after  all  it  is  not  better  to  reject 
all  these  hypotheses  and  return  to  the  view  that  the  second 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians  was  written  shortly  after  the  first^^ 
What  originally  suggested  the  idea  of  a  journey  of  the  apostle 


32         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

to  Corinth  between  the  first  and  second  letters  to  the  Corinthi- 
ans was  the  fact  that  in  the  second  epistle  the  visit  to  Corinth 
which  he  was  about  to  make  is  designated  as  the  third,  from  which 
it  follows  that  in  addition  to  the  stay  of  a  year  and  one-half 
(Acts  i8  :  1 1),  during  which  he  founded  the  church,  he  must  also 
have  made  another  visit  before  writing  the  second  letter.  This 
visit,  it  has  been  supposed,  must  have  taken  place  after  our  first 
epistle,  since  the  latter  does  not  mention  it  at  all.  But  this 
opinion  is  by  no  means  necessary.  If  this  visit  preceded  the 
letter  mentioned  in  i  Cor.  5  :  9,  the  things  which  he  observed  on 
that  visit  —  perhaps  only  a  brief  one  —  were  doubtless  discussed 
in  that  letter,  and  called  for  no  further  treatment  in  our  first 
epistle.  But  if  now  there  really  zvas  such  a  visit  before  this 
lost  letter,  i  Cor.  16:  7  refers  to  it,  and  shows  explicitly  ihat  it 
must  have  been  only  a  flying  visit  (ev  TrapdSa)).  In  any  case,  in 
order  to  explain  the  insinuations  referred  to  in  2  Cor.  10:  10,  we 
must  suppose  that  Paul  on  occasion  of  a  visit  to  Corinth  had  had 
some  sad  experiences,  that  at  that  time  he  had  dealt  leniently 
with  them,  being  reluctant  to  adopt  strenuous  measures  (prob- 
ably because  he  had  recently  learned  by  his  experience  in  Gala- 
tia  how  little  was  effected  by  a  harsh  treatment  of  his  churches), 
and  that  it  was  only  in  a  letter  written  after  this  visit  that  he 
recommended  stern  measures  against  certain  persons.  If  these 
events  had  happened  in  the  time  between  our  first  and  second 
epistles,  we  should  have  to  suppose  that  it  was  the  efforts  of 
the  Judaizers  with  which  he  was  concerned,  since  it  was  they 
who  at  that  time  were  making  the  apostle  the  most  trouble. 
What  he  actually  had  to  deal  with,  however,  according  to  2  Cor. 
12:21;  13:2,  was  the  sins  of  sensuality,  as  was  also  the  case  in 
the  letter  mentioned  in  i  Cor.  5:9;  and  in  this  letter  we  know  for 
certain  that  he  pronounced  the  severest  sentence  of  church  dis- 
cipline upon  the  fornicators  within  the  church,  as  he  had  previ- 
ously done  upon  the  pious  busybodies  at  Thessalonica.  The  visit 
therefore  not  only  may  have  been,  but  ?mist  have  been,  before  the 
lost  letter,  and  with  this  the  whole  theory  of  a  visit  between  our 
two  letters  falls  to  the  ground. 

The    main    argument    for    the    hypothesis    of    a    lost    letter 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES         33 

between  our  two  epistles  has  been  the  remarkable  circumstance 
that,  according  to  i  Cor.  4:  17,  Paul  sent  Timothy  to  Corinth 
and  that,  although  he  is  with  him  again  when  Second  Corinthians 
is  written  (2  Cor.  1:1),  not  a  word  is  said  of  any  news  brought  by 
him  ;  that,  on  the  other  hand  (2  Cor.  2  :  12),  Paul  expects  Titus 
with  the  report  from  Corinth  concerning  the  result  of  his  letter, 
and  that  he  (7:  5  ff.)  in  fact  meets  him  in  Macedonia  with  the 
news  for  which  he  was  waiting.  Inasmuch  as  all  former  attempts 
to  explain  these  facts  were  evidently  unsuccessful,  it  seemed 
as  if  it  would  be  really  necessary  to  adopt  the  hypothesis  that 
Paul,  on  receipt  of  the  news  brought  by  Timothy,  sent  to  Corinth 
by  the  hand  of  Titus  another  letter  which  is  no  longer  extant. 
It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  just  at  the  time  at  which,  accord- 
ing to  I  Cor.,  chap.  4,  Timothy  was  despatched  to  Corinth  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  (19  :  22)  mentions  only  his  going  to  Mace- 
donia. Still  more  remarkable  is  it  that  in  i  Cor.  16:10  Paul 
speaks  of  Timothy's  coming  as  a  possibility  only  (cavSelA^), 
although  in  4:  17  he  had  spoken  of  it  quite  positively.  This 
can  be  explained  only  on  the  supposition  that  while  the  apostle 
was  writing  the  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians  the  doubt  arose  in 
his  mind  whether  it  was  desirable  that  Timothy  should  go  to 
Corinth  just  at  that  time ;  accordingly  he  sent  another  messen- 
ger, perhaps  Erastus  (Acts  19:  22),  to  overtake  Timothy  on  his 
way  through  Macedonia  in  order  to  recall  him  ;  but  that,  not 
knowing  whether  Erastus  would  really  find  him,  he  expresses 
(i  Cor.  16:  10,  11)  great  anxiety  as  to  the  result  in  case  Tim- 
othy should  actually  get  to  Corinth  —  an  anxiety  of  which  4:14- 
17  shows  no  trace.  Between  the  departure  of  Timothy,  there- 
fore, which  was  occasioned  by  the  news  received  from  the  house- 
hold of  Chloe  concerning  the  existence  of  factions  in  Corinth,  and 
his  recall  as  implied  in  16:  10,  something  must  have  happened 
which  created  doubt  in  the  mind  of  the  apostle  whether  this  mis- 
sion of  Timothy  could  still  be  successful  or  whether  it  was  now 
at  all  expedient.  This  must  have  been  the  arrival  of  the  delega- 
tion from  Corinth  (i  Cor.  16:17),  with  the  letter  from  the 
church  (7:  i),  and  that  which  he  himself,  in  consequence  of 
this   news    which  they   brought   and    in  reply  to    the    letter  of 


34         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

the  church,  wrote  in  our  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  which 
being  carried  by  Titus  directly  to  Corinth  would  certainly 
reach  them  in  advance  of  Timothy's  arrival.  By  this  letter  the 
commission  given  to  Timothy  had  manifestly  been  rendered 
inopportune  ;  and  it  would  have  been  very  unfortunate  if  Tim- 
othy had  come  to  Corinth  without  knowing  the  contents  of  the 
letter  or  what  Paul  had  learned  in  the  meantime  from  the  Corin- 
thian delegation.  The  message  to  Timothy  bidding  him  return 
which  was  thus  made  necessary  in  fact  overtook  him  in  Mace- 
donia, and  this  explains  perfectly  why  we  find  Timothy  with  the 
apostle,  and  why  he  was  expecting  Titus  with  news  concerning 
the  result  of  his  letter,  and  renders  unnecessary  the  hypothesis 
of  an  intermediate  letter.  It  has  also  been  justly  said  that  if 
Timothy  had  actually  reached  Corinth  he  would  certainly  have 
been  mentioned  along  with  Titus  in  2  Cor.  12:  18. 

It  has  indeed  been  maintained  that  the  references  in  Second 
Corinthians  to  a  recently  written  letter  do  not  fit  our  First 
Corinthians,  and  that  for  this  reason  we  must  assume  an  inter- 
mediate letter.  But  this  by  no  means  follows  from  the  animad- 
versions against  him  to  the  effect  that  he  was  always  commend- 
ing and  praising  himself,  since  the  way  in  which  he  repeatedly 
appeals  in  the  first  epistle  to  his  own  example  and  speaks  of  his 
apostolic  prerogatives,  activities,  and  successes  might  easily  fur- 
nish his  malicious  opponents  occasion  for  their  attacks.  Indeed, 
2  Cor.  1:12  seems  to  refer  directly  to  i  Cor.  2  :  4  f .  It  must 
be  admitted,  however,  that  the  apostle's  great  distress  of  mind 
over  the  result  of  his  former  epistle  (2  Cor.  2:  13;  7:5),  and 
his  expression  concerning  the  state  of  mind  in  which  he  wrote 
it  (2:4),  is  at  first  sight  somewhat  surprising  if  the  reference  is 
to  our  first  epistle.  But  this  is  so  only  in  case  we  concentrate 
our  attention  on  the  calm  doctrinal  discussions  of  the  first 
epistle,  to  which  of  course  these  expressions  do  not  refer.  The 
cutting  severity  and  the  exceeding  bitterness  of  tone  which  per- 
meates all  the  polemical  portion  of  the  first  epistle  must  not  be 
overlooked.  Evidently  the  severity  with  which  he  dealt  with  the 
case  of  incest  (i  Cor.,  chap.  5)  would  be  most  keenly  felt  in 
Corinth,  as  he  himself  was  aware,  and  he  refers  to  precisely  this 


THE  GEXUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES         3  5 

matter  in  2  :  5  f.  in  connection  with  what  he  says  in  2  :  4  about 
the  grief  with  which  he  wrote.  But  it  is  surprising  how  start- 
lingly  in  i  Cor.  4:7-15  also  the  calm  discussion  is  succeeded 
by  an  outburst  of  profound  indignation  over   the  empty  pride 

and  complacent  self-satisfaction  of  the  Corinthians,  although 
severe  expressions  have  already  interrupted  this  discussion  in 
passages  like  3:  1-4,  16-18;  4:3.  And  it  is  easy  to  conceive 
that  he  feared  that  in  other  passages  also  the  church  would 
miss  the  affectionate  tone  of  their  spiritual  father,  and  that  it 
was  not  easy  for  him  to  reproach  them  so  severely  as  in  this 
letter  he  was  compelled  repeatedly  to  do. 

'  But  these  hypotheses  of  intermediate  letters  and  intermedi- 
ate journeys  are  not  only  unnecessary  but  untenable,  since  the 
second  letter  is  connected  in  the  closest  possible  way  with  the 
first.  When  Paul  wrote  the  first  letter  he  intended  (16:  5,  8)  to 
make  a  journey  through  Asia  to  Macedonia  ;  in  the  second  letter 
he  is  carrying  out  this  intention,  going  by  way  of  Troas  (2  :  8, 
12  f.).  According  to  2  Cor.  i  :  i  5  f .  the  church  at  Corinth  had 
been  offended  with  him,  misinterpreting  his  action  in  going 
directly  to  Macedonia  and  not,  according  to  the  promise  he  had 
made  in  a  previous  letter  (see  2  Cor.  2:13)  to  Macedonia 
by  way  of  Corinth,  and  then  from  Macedonia  back  to  Corinth 
for  a  second  visit.  When  and  where  he  had  made  this  prom- 
ise we  do  not  know ;  probably  in  the  lost  letter  preceding 
our  first.  So  much,  however,  is  certain,  that  when  he  wrote 
I  Cor.  16:  5  he  had  already  made  this  change  in  his  plans,  and 
in  that  passage  informs  them  of  the  change.  For  the  seem- 
ingly tautological  repetition  of  Supxa/xaL  ( i  Cor.  16:5)  has  no  sig- 
nificance whatever  unless  he  intended  by  it  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that  he  was  not  coming  to  them  as  his  former  promises  had 
given  them  reason  to  expect,  but  was  on  the  point  of  starting 
immediately  for  Macedonia.  The  only  reason  he  gives  for  this 
is  that  he  does  not  wish  at  this  time  to  make  them  a  merely 
passing  visit  as  he  had  done  before.  The  Corinthians  themselves 
could  not  but  see  that  after  writing  this  letter  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  him  to  come  to  them  without  entering  into  a  full  dis- 
cussion of  many  questions  at  issue  between  them.     The  deeper 


36         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  IN(2UIRY  CONCERNING 

reason  he  could  not,  of  course,  state  in  this  letter ;  but  now  that 
the  Corinthians  had  so  outrageously  misconstrued  his  change  ot 
plan,  he  is  compelled  to  state  it  (2  Cor.  i  :  23  ;  2  :  i  ff.).  Even 
in  the  first  letter  ( i  Cor.  4:18)  he  had  intimated  that  if  he  came 
before  they  had  thoroughly  reformed  he  should  be  obliged  to 
resort  to  strenuous  measures,  and  this,  for  his  sake  as  well  as  for 
theirs,  he  was  extremely  reluctant  to  do.  It  wa,s  for  this  reason 
that  he  wrote  instead  of  coming,  hoping  that  the  result  of  his 
letter  would  be  that  he  would  be  able  to  come  to  them  again 
with  joy  and  not  with  sorrow. 

If,  then,  the  second  letter  is  so  closely  connected  with  the 
first  in  subject-matter,  intermediate  journeys  and  letters  are 
j  absolutely  excluded.  Moreover,  the  interruption  of  his  discus- 
sion of  his  reasons  for  going  directly  to  Macedonia  instead  of  to 
Corinth  (2:5-11)  is  utterly  inexplicable  unless  his  object  was, 
in  connection  with  vss.  3  and  4,  to  point  out  that  he  had  in  fact 
acted  wisely  in  writing,  since  as  a  result  of  his  letter  the  matter 
which  had  caused  him  most  sorrow,  and  in  which  he  had  been 
compelled  to  cause  them  sorrow,  was  now  happily  disposed  of. 
In  this  connection  the  matter  referred  to  must  be  something  dis- 
cussed in  the  first  letter.  And  the  repeated  expression  6  ToiovTo<i 
(2  :  6  f.)  refers  as  if  by  express  intention  to  i  Cor.  5:5,  just  as 
in  2  Cor.  7:  12,  whfere  he  is  also  speaking  of  the  good  result  of 
their  temporary  sorrow  which  he  had  been  obliged  to  cause 
them,  he  refers  to  the  d8iK7;o-as  and  the  a.liKr]Od%.  Here  he  must 
certainly  be  speaking  not  of  an  insult  to  himself  or  his  messenger, 
but  of  the  case  of  incest,  and  what  he  says  is  again  closely  con- 
nected not  with  any  discussion  of  this  matter  in  a  lost  letter,  but 
with  I  Cor.,  chap.  5.  In  that  passage  he  had  said  that  he  would  have 
preferred  to  deliver  such  an  one  unto  Satan.  But  inasmuch  as 
he  would  not  do  this  unless  the  church  would  fully  concur  with 
him  in  this  sentence,  and  the  church  had  shown  itself  far  too  lax 
and  indifferent  in  this  unhappy  matter,  he  had  contented  himself 
with  imperatively  demanding  the  exclusion  of  the  offender  from 
the  church.  The  majority  of  the  church  has  inflicted  this  pun- 
ishment (2  Cor.  2:6),  and  if  now  they  are  willing  to  pardon  the 
penitent  offender,  he  will  not  insist  upon  the  minority's  concurring 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        37 

in  the  sentence,  but  expressly  requests,  for  reasons  given,  that  the 
offender  shall  be  restored  to  the  church,  this  evidence  of  the  obe- 
dience of  the  church  as  such  being  satisfactory  to  him  (2  :  8  f.). 
If  the  explanation  of  the  apparent  interruption  in  2  :  5-1 1  is 
correct,  then  it  is  clear  how  appropriately  2  :  12  ff.  joins  on  to 
2:4.  The  figurative  expression,  2:14,  has  often  been  misun- 
derstood. What  it  means  is  simply  that,  as  he  has  shown  in 
a  particular  case  (vss.  5-1 1),  God  has  once  more  triumphed 
over  him,  inasmuch  as  by  the  news  which  Titus  has  brought 
concerning  the  success  of  his  letter  he  has  proved  that  all  his 
anxiety  had  been  wholly  superfluous.  Accordingly  he  brings 
the  introductory  thanksgiving  of  his  letter  (1:3 — 2:16)  to  a 
speedy  conclusion  and  with  2:17  passes  over  to  the  great 
apologetic  section  of  the  first  part  of  the  letter  (3:1 — 6:13). 
But  there  is  no  reason  to  regard  even  6  :  14 — 7  :  i  as  an  irrelevant 
interpolation.  The  chief  defects  of  the  church,  which  were  due 
to  too  intimate  intercourse  with  their  unbelieving  countrymen, 
could  not  be  corrected  at  one  stroke,  however  good  the  effect  of 
his  letter.  Accordingly  he  begins  the  hortatory  portion  with  a 
renewed  warning  against  all  fellowship  with  heathenism  ;  but  in 
order  to  guard  against  their  again  misunderstanding  him  and 
supposing  that  he  was  overlooking  the  fact  that  they  had  made 
a  good  beginning  in  their  reformation,  he  speaks  in  chap.  7  at 
length  of  the  news  which  Titus  had  brought,  and  closes  with  an 
expression  of  the  joy  and  good  courage  which  he  again  has 
with  reference  to  the  church  (7:  16).  He  then  passes  to  the 
matter  of  the  collection  for  the  saints,  about  which  he  has  much 
to  say  to  the  church.  This  interpretation  of  the  course  of  thought 
in  chap.  7,  and  the  continuity  of  the  admonitions  in  chaps.  8  and 
g,  I  have  set  forth  at  length  in  my  ErldnterimgC7i,  already 
referred  to.  If  anyone  is  surprised  that  the  apostle  adopts  so 
different  a  tone  in  the  third  part  of  the  letter  (10:  i  — 12:  18), 
this  is  because  it  is  overlooked  that  here  the  apostle  is  settling 
accounts  with  his  Judaizing  opponents  and  that  he  is  dealing 
with  the  church  only  in  so  far  as  they  have  allowed  these  mis- 
erable agitators  to  impose  themselves  upon  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  concluding  exhortation  (12:  19 — 13:10),  he  turns  his 


38         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

attention  again  to  those  individuals  who  had  not  yet  really 
repented,  warning  them  not  to  compel  him  to  use  his  divinely 
given  authority  if  he  should  now  come. 

There  is,  accordingly,  no  more  occasion  to  break  up  this  letter 
into  several  pieces,  written  at  different  times,  than  to  adopt  the 
hypothesis  of  lost  letters  written  between  our  First  and  Second 
Corinthians,  which  necessarily  calls  in  question  the  genuineness 
of  both  letters,  inasmuch  as  they  involve  the  view  that  as  these 
letters  stand  they  cannot  be  explained  as  the  product  of  a 
clearly  defined  situation. 

V.    THE    EPISTLE    TO    THE    ROMANS. 

The  question  concerning  the  constituent  elements  of  the 
church  at  Rome  to  which  Paul  wrote  may  now  be  considered  as 
finally  settled  by  the  history  of  modern  criticism.  Baur,  feel- 
ing himself  compelled  in  the  interest  of  his  conception  of  the 
letter  to  maintain  the  Jewish-Christian  character  of  the  church, 
endeavored  to  disprove  the  traditional  view  that  it  was  com- 
posed essentially  of  Gentile  Christians.  His  view  was  shared 
by  many,  even  outside  of  his  school,  as  for  instance  by  Man- 
gold, who  attempted  to  elaborate  this  view  in  a  special  treatise 
(1866).  In  1876  Holtzmann  was  able  to  assert  with  a  certain 
semblance  of  truth  that,  as  a  result  of  modern  investigation, 
the  traditional  view  had  been  abandoned.  But  that  very  same 
year  Weizsacker  protested  in  the  Jahrbuch  fiir  dcutsclic  Tlieologie 
against  the  modern  view,  and  proved  with  the  old  arguments 
how  indisputable  the  fact  was  that  Paul  conceived  of  his  readers 
as  Gentile  Christians.  From  that  time  the  tide  began  to  move 
in  the  opposite  direction  ;  in  vain  did  Mangold  attempt  once 
more  in  an  entirely  revised  edition  of  his  book  (1884)  to  defend 
the  thesis  of  Baur.  Strangely  enough  there  is  an  inclination, 
especially  in  the  school  of  Hofmann,  to  take  up  that  view  again. 
But,  as  in  the  case  of  Baur,  this  is  merely  the  result  of  a  special 
tendency,  although  a  tendency  in  quite  another  direction.  How 
complete  a  victory  the  traditional  view  has  gained,  issuing  from 
the  prolonged  conflict  freshly  established,  is  manifest  from  the 
embarrassment  of  Holtzmann  in  attempting  to  escape   from   the 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES         39 

difficulty  by  asserting  that  Paul  himself  would  not  have  been 
able  to  answer  satisfactorily  the  question  concerning  the  pro- 
portions of  the  constituent  elements  of  the  church  at  Rome. 
But  that  is  not  the  question  at  all.  For  Paul  must  have  known 
whether  he  conceived  of  the  readers  to  whom  he  wrote  as  Jew- 
ish or  as  Gentile  Christians. 

Steck  is  wholly  in  error  when,  in  order  to  show  that  the 
epistle  to  the  Romans  is  also  a  patchwork  made  up  from  differ- 
ent treatises  of  the  Pauline  school,  he  asserts  that  at  least  the 
portion  from  i  :  i6  —  8:39  presupposes  that  the  minds  of  the 
readers  are  still  in  bondage  to  Jewish  Christianity.  Even  in 
3  :  27-30  Paul  argues  from  premises  which  would  be  unhesita- 
tingly accepted  only  by  Pauline  Gentile  Christians;  in  4  :  16  he 
includes  the  readers  with  himself  and  his  people  in  the  Travrwv 
17/xaiv  in  order  to  imply  that  Abraham  was  the  father  both  of 
Jewish  and  Gentile  Christians.  Since  the  type  of  doctrine  which 
the  readers  have  been  divinely  led  to  accept  (6:16,  17)  is 
shown  by  the  connection  to  be  that  which  is  characterized  in 
vs.  I4f.  by  the  words  ovy^  vtt6  vofxov  dAAa  vwo  x'^P'-^  ^'''"•''  ^^^  since 
their  past  is  also  expressly  characterized  (vs.  19)  by  subjec- 
tion to  aKaOapa-ia  kol  avofxia,  it  is  evident  that  these  readers  are  Paul- 
ine Gentile  Christians.  Beyschlag,  to  be  sure,  still  claims  on  the 
ground  of  7  :  1-6  that  the  church  was  composed  of  those  who  had 
been  Jewish  proselytes.  But  the  anarthrous  use  of  the  word  "law" 
and  the  whole  connection  show  that  the  readers  in  7:1  are  not 
designated  as  persons  acquainted  with  "the  law"  (though  even 
Gentile  Christians  had  become  acquainted  with  it,  according  to 
Gal.  4:21,  through  the  reading  of  the  Old  Testament  in  the 
meetings  of  the  congregation),  but  as  knowing  /aw.  It  was, 
as  also  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians  shows,  just  as  important 
to  prove  that  the  Gentile  Christians  were  free  from  law  as 
such  as  that  the  Jewish  Christians  were  so  ;  since  the  Gentiles 
in  becoming  converted  to  the  God  of  Israel  would  evidently 
be  subject  to  his  law  if  the  obligation  to  render  such  obedi- 
ence had  not  been  removed  for  the  Jews  as  well  as  for  the 
Gentiles.  The  passage  7:5  f.,  however,  does  not  by  any  means 
show  that  the  readers  have  been  subject  with  the  apostle  to  the 


40         PRESENl^  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

law,  but  only  means  that  both  are,  by  their  common  deliverance 
from  the  law,  free  from  its  power  to  stir  up  in  them  the  old  sin- 
ful passions  again  and  again. 

But  Steck  is  right  in  saying  that  no  one  has  as  yet  sufficiently 
explained  what  purpose  the  doctrinal  expositions  of  the  epistle 
to  the  Romans  have  as  addressed  to  Gentile  Christians.  Just 
because  he  considered  them  as  polemical,  directed  against  Juda- 
izing  tendencies,  Baur  was  compelled  to  consider  the  readers  as 
Jewish  Christians.  No  matter  how  much  the  opposition  which 
Paul  has  in  view  is  reduced,  whether  one  looks  for  it  with  Man- 
gold among  the  Jewish  Christians  or  with  the  majority  of  critics 
among  the  Roman  Gentile  Christians,  who  are  supposed  not  to 
have  reached  as  yet  the  height  of  Pauline  knowledge,  the  idea 
that  he  is  conducting  a  polemic  against  the  views  held  by  them, 
or  is  seeking  to  rectify  their  views,  is  in  manifest  contradiction 
to  the  full  approval  of  their  spiritual  condition  (i  :  12),  which 
would  become  thereby  an  insincere  captatio  be?ievolefiticB,  and 
with  the  definite  implication  in  15:  14  f.  that  they  share  his 
knowledge  and  need  only  to  be  reminded  of  it.  Every  view 
which  holds  that  the  purpose  of  the  letter  is  to  reconcile  oppos- 
ing elements  in  the  church,  as  is  maintained  by  the  later  Tubin- 
gen school,  men  like  Volkmar,  Holsten,  and  Pfleiderer,  is  dis- 
proved by  the  fact  that  the  Jewish  Christians  can  have  formed 
only  a  very  small  percentage  of  the  church,  and  that  at  the  only 
point  where  this  opposition  becomes  conspicuous  in  the  church 
(15:8  f.)  the  matter  is  a  practical  controversy  over  a  very  spe- 
cific matter  the  treatment  of  which  in  chapter  14  excludes  any 
far-reaching  doctrinal  difference.  On  the  other  side,  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  very  plausible  view  concerning  the  epistle  defended 
recently  by  Weizsacker,  Grafe,  and  Julicher,  according  to  which 
the  epistle  aims  to  protect  the  church  against  invading  Judaism, 
Steck  has  shown  that,  except  in  3:8,  there  is  in  the  whole 
epistle  not  a  trace  of  an  anti-Judaistic  polemic,  such  as  appears, 
for  example,  in  the  second  epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  He 
might  have  added  that  Weizsacker  himself  admits  that  we 
do  not  know  that  this  reproach  (Rom.  3:  8)  was  ever  brought 
against  Paul    by  the  Judaizers.      It  must  be  conceded,  therefore. 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES        4  I 

that  the  polemical  statements  of  the  epistle  cannot  be  explained 
by  any  immediate  exigencies  of  the  church  at  Rome.  This,  is 
fully  confirmed  if  \vc  do  not  look  at  these  statements  from  the 
point  of  view  of  a  preconceived  opinion  concerning  the  purpose 
of  the  epistle,  but  ask  ourselves  the  question  whether  they  really 
can  be  regarded  as  attacks  upon  Judaistic  errors  in  any  form. 

None  of  the  theories  concerning  the  purpose  of  the  epistle  to 
the  Romans  thus  far  proposed  has  succeeded  in  showing  how  the 
exposition  of  the  j)unitive  judgment  of  God  v\\)0\\  the  heathen 
world  in  chap,  i  stands  related  to  the  purpose  which  these 
theories  attribute  to  the  apostle.     When,  however,  Paul  in  2  :  i  — 

3  :  20  sets  forth  that  the  Jews  are  also  subject  to  this  judgment 
of  wrath  in  spite  of  their  possessing  the  law  and  being  circum- 
cised, since  the  opportunity  which  they  by  their  unfaithfulness 
furnished  to  God  to  exhibit  his  faithfulness  in  a  yet  clearer 
light  cannot  secure  impunity  for  them  ;  and,  further,  that  the 
Old  Testament  teaching  concerning  universal  sinfulness  has  ref- 
erence to  them  also  ;  it  is  clear  that  this  portion  of  the  letter 
cannot  be  directed  against  the  Jewish-Christian  position,  since  no 
Jewish  Christian  ever  denied  that  the  Jews,  if  they  do  not  fulfill 
the  law  of  which  they  boast  and  if  their  circumcision  is  not 
accompanied  by  that  of  the  heart,  are  likewise  subject  to  the 
judgment  of  God.  And  yet  it  is  precisely  in  this  part  of  the 
epistle  that  the  apostle's  dialectical  method  is  most  marked  —  a 
method  which  conveys  the  impression  that  he  is  establishing  his 
position  first  of  all  in  the  controversy  with  the  Jews.  Without 
a  trace  of  polemic  the  apostle  proceeds  then  to  show  in  3  :  21  — 

4  :  25  that  it  is  only  the  gospel  of  justification  by  faith  that  can 
satisfy  the  religious  needs  of  man,  inasmuch  as  it  excludes  all 
self-righteousness  and  is  equally  available  for  both  Jews  and 
Gentiles  ;  and,  further,  that  this  justification  by  faith  had  in  both 
these  respects  a  prototype  in  the  history  of  Abraham.  When  he 
proves,  however,  in  chap.  5  in  a  doctrinal  and  historical  exposi- 
tion that  with  this  righteousness  was  given  also  life,  i.  e.,  the 
completion  of  salvation,  he  has  just  arrived  at  the  point  on  which 
he  differed  most  sharply  with  the  Judaizers  ;  still  there  is  no 
reference  to  their    conception    that  the    promises  given   to  the 


42         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

people  of  Israel  could  be  shared  only  by  those  who  have  become 
incorporated  with  them  by  submitting  to  the  law  and  circum- 
cision. 

The  following  section  (6:  i  ff.)  might  perhaps  under  stress 
be  interpreted  as  an  attempt  on  Paul's  part  to  guard  against  the 
reproach  that  his  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  would  lead 
men  to  continue  in  sin.  But  in  that  case  the  paragraph  is  intro- 
duced in  a  very  unskillful  way  by  the  harshest  expression  of  the 
power  of  the  law  to  increase  sin  (5  :  20,  21).  The  proof,  how- 
ever, in  chap.  6,  that  in  baptism  a  new  life  had  already  been 
established,  which  would  necessarily  lead  to  freedom  from  sin 
and  to  the  service  of  righteousness,  develops  in  a  purely  theoret- 
ical manner  the  consequences  of  the  apostle's  doctrine  of  grace. 
Even  such  a  practical  application  as  occurs  in  6:  I2ff.  is  not 
intended  to  correct  Judaistic  misconceptions,  but  is  rather  a  moral 
exhortation  addressed  to  the  Gentile  Christians.  Finally,  the 
exposition  concerning  the  deliverance  of  the  Christian  from  the 
law,  in  chap.  7,  does  not  follow  the  mode  of  argument  employed 
by  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians,  in  which  the  apostle  demon- 
strably deals  with  Judaistic  opponents,  but  is  based  upon  his  own 
experience  under  the  law  from  which  he  has  learned  that  the 
law  cannot  overcome,  but  only  stimulate,  sin ;  thus  it  is  proved 
that  a  new  principle  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  conquest  of 
the  power  of  sin  in  man.  That  the  spirit  given  to  us  through 
our  vital  communion  with  Christ  is  this  principle  is  clearly 
stated  in  chap.  8,  but  immediately  the  apostle  turns  to  the  exhor- 
tation that  the  Christians  should  surrender  themselves  to  this 
spirit  in  all  the  affairs  of  life,  and  should  find  in  it  the  pledge  of 
the  completion  of  salvation,  the  certainty  of  which  he  sees,  finally, 
in  the  election  and  calling  of  those  who  have  been  justified. 

It  is  an  old  opinion  that  Paul  speaks  of  his  mission  to  the  Gen- 
tiles in  chaps.  9-1 1,  and  justifies  it  over  against  Judaizing  preju- 
dices. The  problem  which  occupies  him  here  is,  however,  merely 
the  question  which,  because  of  his  affection  for  his  nation  —  here 
again  so  vividly  and  repeatedly  expressed,  e.  g.,  9  :  1-5  and  10  : 
I — moves  him  deeply  :  What  is  the  reason  that  notwithstanding 
the  promises  made  in  the  first  instance  to  Israel  the  majority  of 


THE  GENUINENESS  OE  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        43 

the  people  of  Israel  have  not  obtained  the  salvation  which  was 
promised  to  them  primarily?  For  no  Jewish  Christian  ever  con- 
sidered it  an  injustice  that  God  chose  Isaac  rather  than  Ishmael, 
and  Jacob  rather  than  Esau,  or  that  he  hardened  Pharaoh  ;  and 
still  here  also  in  the  treatment  of  the  subject  Paul's  peculiar  dia- 
lectic method  appears  most  vividly.  If  Paul  emphasizes  strongly 
the  absolute  freedom  of  God,  which  is  displayed  in  ruling  over 
the  creatures  of  his  power,  he  certainl}'  has  in  mind  first  of  all 
the  claims  of  unbelieving  Jews ;  but  over  against  this  he  at 
once  states  in  9 :  22  ff.  the  real  condition  of  things,  according  to 
which  God  has  endured  the  vessels  which  have  become  subject 
to  his  wrath  with  great  patience,  and  has  put  off  his  final  judg- 
ment in  order  to  make  room  for  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles, 
promised  already  in  the  Old  Testament.  He  proceeds  to  show 
that  the  unbelieving  Jews  have  themselves  brought  this  fate  upon 
themselves,  by  committing  the  unpardonable  sin  of  unbelief  which 
determines  their  fate  (9:30 — I0:2i).  Did  a  Jewish  Christian 
ever  doubt  this?  If,  consequently,  the  majority  of  Israel  is  hard- 
ened at  present  and  only  a  remnant  is  saved,  as  even  the  prophets 
had  foreseen  (ii  :  i-io),  Paul  has  nevertheless  come  back  to  the 
belief  that  in  the  wonderful  grace  of  God  all  Israel  may  finally 
be  saved  as  a  nation  (ii  :  25-36).  And  when  he  inserts  here  a 
practical  application,  it  is  not  one  intended  to  refute  some  Jew- 
ish-Christian error,  but  to  warn  the  Gentile  Christians  not  to 
boast,  but  rather  to  endeavor,  by  continuing  in  the  grace  of  God 
through  faith,  to  escape  being  themselves  cast  away.  How  little, 
however,  these  digressions  of  the  epistle  are  intended  to  meet 
special  needs  of  the  church  at  Rome  may  be  seen  also  from  the 
hortatory  part  in  which  Paul  develops  the  whole  series  of  Chris- 
tian duties  in  an  entirely  theoretical  fashion,  and  only  in  chap. 
14  takes  up  a  special  matter  concerning  which  there  had  been 
some  controversy  in  Rome. 

It  is,  indeed,  asserted  that  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  could 
not  be  explained  historically,  and  that  it  would  be  without  any 
analogy  whatsoever  among  the  Pauline  epistles,  if  it  were  not 
occasioned  by  existing  defects  and  errors  of  the  church  at 
Rome.      But  on  any  theory  this  epistle  holds  a   unique    position 


44         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

among  the  Pauline  letters  and  the  historical  occasion  may  very 
well  have  been  in  the  personal  experiences  of  the  apostle.  We 
must  remember  that  Paul  stood  at  an  important  turning  point 
of  his  life,  since,  having  finished  his  work  in  the  Orient,  he 
was  now  looking  for  a  new  field  of  activity  in  the  Occident. 
Just  after  the  victorious  completion  of  the  controversy  with  his 
Judaistic  opponents  in  Galatia  and  Corinth,  it  must  have  been  a 
necessity  for  the  apostle,  having  now  learned  to  appreciate  bet- 
ter what  was  defensible  in  the  position  of  his  opponents,  to  sum 
up  the  whole  matter.  And  this  he  did,  following  his  natural 
impulse  as  a  writer,  and  formulating  in  a  comprehensive  treatise 
his  doctrine  of  salvation,  setting  forth  its  points  of  agreement 
with  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  and  with  the 
claims  which  the  children  of  Israel  have,  owing  to  their  peculiar 
position  in  the  history  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  reason 
why  he  did  this  in  the  form  of  an  epistle  to  the  church  at  Rome 
was  partlv  that  this  was  about  the  only  form  in  which  he  was 
accustomed  to  exercise  his  ability  as  a  writer,  and  partly  that 
just  at  this  time  he  had  occasion  to  announce  to  this  church  his 
intention  to  visit  them. 

He  had  long  ago  recognized  the  importance  of  the  church  in 
the  world's  capital  ( i  :  8) ,  and  it  must  have  been  a  matter  of 
importance  to  him  to  induce  this  church  to  receive  and  transmit 
a  conception  of  his  message  of  salvation  adapted  to  end  forever 
the  controversy  between  Jewish  and  Gentile  Christians,  which 
he  was  just  then  engaged  in  allaying  by  his  journey  to  the 
mother  church  at  Jerusalem  for  the  purpose  of  delivering  a 
collection  from  the  churches.  If  he  had  in  view  with  this  mat- 
ter an  immediately  practical  purpose  it  could  only  be  this,  to 
enable  the  church  at  Rome,  where  Christianit}'  and  Judaism 
were  both  seeking  to  win  for  themselves  the  Gentile  already 
yearning  after  monotheism,  to  answer  all  the  claims  and  meet 
all  the  objections  of  Judaism.  Let  us  remember,  however,  that 
he  was  just  at  that  time  seriously  threatened  by  hostile  Jews 
(15  :  31),  and  we  shall  at  once  see  that  the  thought  must  have 
come  to  him  that  this  epistle  might  be  his  legacy  to  the  church 
and  throusfh  it  to  all  Christendom. 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES       45 

Baur's  rejection  of  chapters  15  and  16  as  not  genuine 
was  perfectly  comprehensible  from  his  point  of  view,  since 
this  section  too  directly  contradicted  his  views  concerning  the 
anti-Judaism  of  Paul  {^cf.  15  :  8),  the  Jewish-Christian  character  of 
the  church  at  Rome  (c/.  15  :  14  ff.)  and  the  unhistorical  charac- 
ter of  the  Acts  in  those  passages  which  tell  of  the  first  activity 
of  Paul  in  Jerusalem  (r/.  15:  19).  That  Marcion,  who  also  of 
necessity  objected  strongly  to  15:8,  did  not  have  this  section 
in  his  Apostolos  does  not  concern  us  here,  if  we  remember  how 
he  adapted  the  epistles  to  the  necessities  of  his  theory  ;  and 
Baur's  other  reasons  for  rejecting  the  section  were  artificial  and 
far  fetched.  Even  Lucht  and  Volkmar,  therefore,  believed  that 
these  two  chapters  contained  a  genuine  conclusion  which  had 
been  worked  over  later  with  an  irenical  tendency  because  it 
sounded  too  harsh,  and  endeavored  to  reconstruct  it  ;  while 
genuine  Tiibingenists,  like  Hilgenfeld  and  Pfleiderer,  and  with 
them  the  majority  of  the  other  more  recent  critics,  continued  to 
defend  their  genuineness  in  spite  of  Baur.  Since  Mangold's  refu- 
tation, which,  with  indefatigable  industry,  follows  criticism  into 
all  its  detailed  objections,  this  position  of  Baur  may  also  be 
regarded  as  superseded.  Only  the  spuriousness  of  the  doxology 
(16:25-27)  has  been  maintained  by  many  defenders  of  the 
remainder  of  the  two  chapters.  The  only  reason  that  can  be  given 
for  this  view  with  any  semblance  of  truth  is  that  in  some  manu- 
scripts the  doxology  is  found  at  the  end  of  chap.  14,  in  others  is 
in  both  places,  and  in  still  others  is  missing  entirely.  But  this 
fact  is  most  probably  the  result  of  the  omission  of- the  concluding 
chapters  in  Marcion.  If  one  does  not  consider  this  omission  of 
any  importance,  the  reason  for  the  spuriousness  of  the  closing 
doxology  is  removed  also  ;  if  one,  however,  maintains  this  reason 
it  is  necessary  in  consistency  to  return  to  the  position,  now  for- 
tunately superseded,  of  doubting  the  genuineness  of  both  of  the 
concluding  chapters.  For  the  internal  evidence  against  the 
genuineness  of  the  closing  doxology  is  at  best  weak.  It  is  usually, 
with  Holtzmann,  attributed  to  the  auctor  ad  Ephesios.  Those  who 
regard  the  apostle  as  the  author  of  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians 
can  consequently  make  no  objection  to  it  here. 


46         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  EXQUIRY  CONCERNING 

An  entirely  different  question  which  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  genuineness  of  the  Pauline  epistles  is  whether  the  section 
i6:  1-20  was  originally  a  part  of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  or 
whether  it  was  an  independent  letter  of  recommendation  for  the 
deaconess  Phoebe  to  the  church  at  Ephesus.  Even  among  the 
critics  the  controversy  concerning  this  point  is  still  going  on.  1 
believe  that  in  almost  every  verse  there  are  such  overwhelming 
reasons  in  favor  of  the  latter  view  that  I  cannot  quite  under- 
stand how  anyone  can  adhere  to  the  traditional  view.  The  proc- 
ess by  which  this  letter  of  recommendation  got  into  the  epistle 
to  the  Romans  is,  indeed,  easily  enough  explained.  If  the 
deaconess  went  to  Ephesus  in  order  to  embark  thence  for  Rome 
and  to  deliver  our  epistle,  it  was  but  natural  that  the  church  at 
Ephesus  should  make  a  copy  of  this  epistle  and  preserve  with  it 
the  lines  of  recommendation  which  the  church  had  received 
through  the  same  hand  that  brought  the  precious  epistle.  It  is 
easy  to  suppose  that  later  on,  since  this  iTTLaroXr}  avaraTLKr]  had  no 
address  of  its  own,  these  lines  were  embodied  in  the  epistle  to 
the  Romans,  with  which  they  had  been  connected  from  the 
beginning. 

VI.    THE    EPISTLE    TO    THE    COLOSSIANS. 

With  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians  we  pass  to  the  so-called 
epistles  of  the  captivity.  Whether  this  was  written  from  Rome 
or  from  Caesarea  does  not  affect  the  question  of  genuineness  — 
I  myself  believe  that  the  weight  of  evidence  is  for  Caesarea. 
But  with  the  question  concerning  the  errorists  whom  Paul 
opposes  in  the  letter  the  case  is  different;  the  conception 
we  form  of  these  will  determine  our  answer  to  the  question 
whether  the  letter  is  genuine  or  not.  And  in  reference  to  this 
matter  the  assumption  that  those  whose  error  is  refuted  are 
partly  or  wholly  the  same  as  those  against  whom  the  epistle  to 
the  Galatians  is  directed  has  not  yet  received  as  thorough  a 
refutation  as  the  case  demands.  What  the  apostle  is  here  deal- 
ing with  is  evidently  not  a  denial  of  his  doctrine  of  salvation, 
but  rather  the  question  whether  for  the  attainment  of  the  true 
consummation   of   Christian   life   and   character,  and   so   for  the 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        47 

full  assurance  of  salvation,  something  more  and  greater  be  not 
necessary  than  the  simple  belief  of  that  message  of  salvation 
and  the  Christian  morality  that  comes  with  it,  viz.,  a  profound 
insight  into  the  secrets  of  the  divine  being  and  a  strict  regula- 
tion of  the  whole  life  by  ascetic  rules.  This  insight,  it  was  sup- 
posed, could  be  attained  partly  through  traditional  theosophic 
doctrines  (2:8),  partly  through  visions  (2  :  18);  and  asceticism 
was  deemed  necessary  in  order  to  enable  one  to  enter  into  inter- 
course with  the  heavenly  world,  by  which  it  would  become  more 
and  more  thoroughly  known.  Inasmuch  as  the  asceticism  in  the 
Roman  church,  with  which  Romans  (chap.  14)  deals,  and  which 
included  abstinence  from  flesh  and  wine  as  well  as  a  strict 
observance  of  certain  fast  days,  is  to  be  traced  to  Essenic  influ- 
ence, it  is  probable  that  this  theosophic-ascetic  tendency  of 
Jewish  Christianity  is  also  connected  with  Essenism. 

It  appears,  to  be  sure,  from  2:11  and  3:11  that  this  Jewish- 
Christian  party  attached  great  value  to  circumcision  ;  this,  how- 
ever, was  not  because,  like  the  Pharisaic  party  in  the  church, 
they  held  that  by  it  one  was  incorporated  into  the  Israelitish 
community,  to  which  alone  belonged  the  attainment  of  salva- 
tion, but  because  through  it  the  whole  physical  life  was  believed 
to  be  in  a  higher  degree  consecrated  to  God.  The  Jewish  fes- 
tivals likewise  (2:  16)  were  not  observed  because  the  Mosaic 
law  was  regarded  as  of  permanent  validity,  but  because  by  such 
consecration  to  God  of  certain  regularly  recurring  days  the 
whole  daily  life  was  supposed  to  gain  a  higher  consecration. 
Moreover,  the  rules  which  were,  in  the  stricter  sense,  ascetic 
had,  according  to  2  :  20  ff.,  no  relation  whatever  to  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, but  were  based  upon  commandments  of  men  regarding 
all  physical  enjoyments  ;  and  for  this  reason  Paul  never  appeals 
in  his  polemic  to  the  Old  Testament.  Nevertheless  the  apostle 
perceived  clearly  that  the  danger  from  this  party  was  quite 
as  great  as  that  from  Pharisaic  Jewish  Christianity  ;  for,  aside 
from  the  conceit  which  such  new  wisdom  and  philosophy  pro- 
duced (2:8,  18),  it  inevitably  led  to  the  idea  that  the  fullness 
of  the  divine  essence  was  poured  out  over  the  entire  higher 
world   of  spirits  and   thereupon   to  the  attempt  by  worship  of 


48         PRESEXT  STATUS  OF  THE  /N(2UI/iV  CONCERNING 

angels  (2  :  18,  23)  to  enter  into  mysterious  relation  with  the  God- 
head ;  which  the  apostle  foresaw  would  imperil  both  the  unique 
majesty  and  dignity  of  Christ  and  the  all-sufficiency  of  his  redeem- 
ing work  and  mediatorship.  These  ascetic  exercises,  moreover, 
tended  continually  to  the  development  of  a  new  legalism  which 
Paul  could  not  but  regard  as  a  return  to  an  obsolete  stage  of 
religious  development  (2  :  20). 

Nevertheless  the  apostle  was  obliged  to  assume  toward  this 
tendency  a  very  different  attitude  from  that  which  he  had  taken 
toward  the  Pharisaic  party  in  the  church.  Inasmuch  as  they  did 
not  oppose  his  doctrine  of  salvation,  he  could  not  reject  their  doc- 
trine i?i  toto ;  there  was  a  legitimate  element  in  it,  inasmuch  as 
it  met  an  awakening  consciousness  of  need  of  deeper  knowl- 
edge. He  himself  knew  that  the  gospel  concealed  in  itself  a 
profound  divine  wisdom  (^/.  i  Cor.,  chap.  2)  which  was  able 
fully  to  satisfy  this  desire  ;  and  the  comparative  restraint  and 
greater  leisure  of  his  imprisonment  gave  him  abundant  opportu- 
nity to  penetrate  more  and  more  into  this  divine  wisdom.  In 
his  earlier  letters  the  godlike  glory  of  the  exalted  Christ  had  led 
to  the  recognition  of  his  eternal  existence  and  activity  ;  all  that 
was  lacking  now  was  that  he  should  be  apprehended  as  the 
foundation  and  the  goal  of  all  creation,  all  orders  of  the  heavenly 
beings  included  {^cf.  i:  16),  and  that  it  should  be  seen  that  in  him 
all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead,  of  which  this  theosophy  had  so 
much  to  say,  dwelt  bodily  (i  :  19;  2:9).  His  redemptive  work 
also  appeared  now  in  an  entirely  new  light.  Hitherto  Paul  had 
regarded  it  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  human  need  of  sal- 
vation ;  now,  however,  he  perceived  how  by  it  the  victory  was 
gained  over  the  principalities  and  powers  hostile  to  God  (2  :  15) 
and  how  the  kingly  dominion  of  Christ  had  displaced  them,  so 
that  his  redemptive  work  acquired  also  a  cosmic  significance.  In 
proportion  as  the  increasing  tendency  to  speculation  threatened 
to  divide  the  church  into  parties  or  schools,  Paul  was  compelled 
to  emphasize  the  organic  unity  of  the  church  under  Christ  as  its 
head  (1:18,24;  2:  19)  and  the  universal  significance  of  the  gos- 
pel by  which  it  had  been  founded  (1:6,  23).  To  be  sure  he  was 
obliged  continually  to  insist  that  the  content  of  the  gospel  was 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES        49 

not  some  theosophic  speculation  but  the  mystery  of  salvation  ; 
yet  at  the  same  time  that  in  the  gospel  were  hid  all  the  treas- 
ures of  wisdom  and  knowledge  (2:  2  f.).  Now,  therefore,  the 
difference  between  heathenism  and  Judaism  is  obliterated 
(3:  10  f.)  in  an  entirely  different  way  from  that  employed  in 
the  earlier  letters  ;  by  the  redemptive  death  of  Christ  the  law 
itself,  conceived  of  as  a  code  of  statutes,  is  as  such  abrogated 
(2:14),  and  not  simply  the  obligation  of  the  individual  to  obey  it. 
Now  also  the  destiny  of  the  world  appears  in  a  new  light ;  the 
great  gulf  which  sin  made  in  the  divinely  created  world  of  spirits 
is  done  away,  and  by  joining  them  to  Christ  as  their  only  head, 
men  a7id  angels  must  again  be  united  ( i :  20).  Thus  in  a  certain 
sense  the  antithesis  between  heaven  and  earth  is  even  in  this  life 
done  away  with  (3:1  ff.) . 

But  lofty  as  were  these  christological,  soteriological,  and 
eschatological  speculations,  yet  the  apostle  was  constantly  forced 
to  emphasize  the  fact  that  every  true  advance  in  knowledge  must 
also  bear  fruit  in  the  fulfillment  of  the  divine  will  and  in  the 
achievement  of  complete  moral  renewal  (i:9f.;  2  :  9  ff.) .  He 
was,  however,  compelled  also  to  prove  how  this  renewal  is  shown 
not  in  the  carrying  out  of  arbitrar}^  human  enactments,  but  in 
the  reorganization  of  domestic  and  social  life  with  the  duties 
pertaining  to  it.  In  a  more  thoroughgoing  way  than  in  the 
earlier  letters  he  sought  to  regulate  the  Christian  moral  life 
through  detailed  prescriptions,  and  the  significance  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  revealed  to  him  in  a  new  light,  being  regarded 
no  longer  as  a  code,  but  as  a  typical  foreshadowing  of  the  divine 
will  as  it  was  fulfilled  in  Christ  -(2:11,17).  It  is  the  province 
of  biblical  theology  to  set  forth  in  detail  this  development  of 
Paulinism  in  all  directions  as  it  appears  in  the  letters  of  the 
imprisonment  {cf.  my  Lelirbuch  der  biblischen  Thcologie  des  Neuen 
Testaments,  6.  Aufl.,  Berlin,  1895).  It  is  sufficient  for  criticism 
to  prove  that  there  was  adequate  occasion  for  this  development 
in  the  new  kind  of  opposition  which  confronted  the  apostle  in 
Colossae. 

To  be  sure  if  we  deny  to  the  Paul  of  the  great  doctrinal  and 
controversial  epistles  any  capacity  of  development  in  his  ideas 


50         PRESENT  STATUS  OE  THE  IN(2UIRy  CONCERNING 

wc  can  hardly  regard  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians  as  his  work  ; 
and  if  we  hold  that  he  was  limited  to  a  narrow  vocabulary  and  a 
stereotyped  style,  forced  upon  him  by  the  former  controversial 
period,  we  can  no  longer  recognize  the  apostle  in  the  writer  of 
these  letters.  But  what  a  pitiful  conception  of  the  great  apostle 
underlies  criticism  of  this  sort.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  only 
natural  that  his  rigid  and  dogmatic  style  of  expression  with  its 
theses  and  antitheses  should  disappear  upon  the  cessation  of  the 
conflict  with  Pharisaic  Judaism ;  and  that  when  there  was  no 
longer  any  opposition  to  his  doctrine  of  salvation  the  argumen- 
tative exposition  of  it  should  likewise  cease.  Moreover,  as  a 
wise  teacher  Paul  would  take  up  the  technical  terms  of  the  the- 
osophists,  such  as  TrXi/pw/xa  and  ixva-r-qpiov,  as  well  as  their  specu- 
lations concerning  the  angelic  orders,  their  demand  for  a  higher 
gnosis,  and  for  the  perfection  of  the  Christian  life ;  only  he 
would  stamp  them  with  a  meaning  of  his  own.  He  was  obliged 
to  employ  in  the  unfolding  of  the  entire  fullness  and  depth  of 
the  truth  of  salvation  a  mode  of  presentation  different  from  that 
required  in  the  original  exposition  and  substantiation  of  it.  The 
long-drawn-out  sentences,  overloaded  with  ideas,  their  parts 
only  loosely  connected  by  relatives  and  participial  constructions, 
simply  show  that  the  same  apostle  is  writing  who  in  the  earlier 
letters  shows  himself  unacquainted  with  literary  Greek  and  on 
principle  indifferent  to  rhetorical  effect.  Where,  however,  he 
assumes  again  a  definite  polemical  attitude  he  expresses  himself 
in  antitheses  which  are  as  pointed  as  in  the  earlier  letters,  though 
now  they  often  suggest  more  than  is  actually  said. 

In  view  of  all  this  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  criticism 
should  inevitably  have  been  in  perplexity  concerning  the  genu- 
ineness of  this  letter.  Ewald,  indeed,  for  a  time  went  no  further 
than  to  ascribe  it  to  Timothy,  who  drew  it  up  after  a  preliminary 
discussion  of  its  contents  with  the  apostle.  But  the  Tubingen 
school  was  forced  to  construe  the  expressions  of  the  letter  in 
the  sense  of  second-century  gnosticism  in  order  thus  to  be  able 
to  prove  by  an  evident  circuliis  in  demonstrando  that  it  was  influ- 
enced by  this  gnosticism  and  opposed  it ;  or  to  discover  in  the 
mention  of  the    Petrine    Mark    (4:10)   and  the   Pauline    Luke 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        5  I 

(4:  14)  a  trace  of  the  reconciling  tendency  of  the  second  cen- 
tury which  was  supposed  to  appear  also  in  the  emj^hasis  which 
the  epistle  lays  on  the  unity  of  the  church.  Hilgcnfeld,  how- 
ever, dated  the  letter  much  earlier  and  regarded  it  as  a  polemic 
against  the  beginnings  of  gnosticism  in  the  person  of  Cerinthus. 
In  this  he  returned  to  the  view  of  Mayerhoff,  who  first  (1838) 
controverted  the  genuineness  of  the  letter  from  this  point  of 
view.  But  it  is  most  interesting  to  observe  that  the  alleged 
dependence  of  the  letter  to  the  Colossians  upon  that  to  the 
Ephesians,  on  which  he  based  his  attack,  was  just  the  point  at 
which  the  reactionary  movement  set  in.  When  Holtzmann  in 
1872  carefully  investigated  both  letters  with  reference  to  this 
point,  he  believed  that  he  found  interwoven  in  Colossians  the 
indications  both  of  originality  and  dependence  upon  Ephe- 
sians, both  of  genuineness  and  of  spuriousness.  Upon  this 
he  built  the  hypothesis  that  the  genuine  letter  of  Paul  to  the 
Colossians  was  imitated  by  the  auctor  ad  Ephcsios  and  then  once 
more  —  with  what  purpose  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  —  was  inter- 
polated to  suit  his  own  views.  In  opposition  to  him  von  Soden 
in  1885  successfully  proved  that  the  indications  of  dependence 
and  spuriousness  found  by  Holtzmann  in  the  letter  to  the  Colos- 
sians were  wholly  unsubstantiated,  and  he  regarded  only  a  very 
few  verses  as  later  interpolations.  Inh'xs  Hand-Commentar,  1891, 
he  admitted  the  genuineness  even  of  these.  Since  then  Jiilicher 
and  Harnack  have  emphatically  declared  themselves  in  favor  of 
the  genuineness  of  the  epistle  as  handed  down  by  tradition. 
Accordingly  this  letter  also,  having  been  tested  by  the  fire  of 
criticism,  has  maintained  its  genuineness. 

It  is  certain  that  since  the  personal  greetings  in  chap.  4  are 
not  matters  of  invention  they  constitute  an  argument  against  the 
hypothesis  of  pseudonymous  authorship  difficult  to  overcome. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  canonical  letter  to  Philemon,  so  insepa- 
rably joined  to  the  Colossian  letter  by  the  reference  in  Col.  4  :  9. 
It  is  today  quite  generallv  accepted  that  Baur's  maintenance  of 
the  spuriousness  of  this  letter  was  one  of  his  worst  blunders. 
That  he  should  have  called  it  the  embr3o  of  a  Christian  novel 
sounds  like  a  jest,  not  a  scientific  argument.    Weizsacker  is  nearer 


52         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

right  in  regarding  it  as  the  presentation  of  truth  by  example. 
But  in  that  case  we  should  expect  a  discussion  of  the  question 
of  slavery.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  letter  gives  no  definite 
instructions  on  the  subject ;  whether  Philemon  is  to  receive  the 
returning  slave  as  a  brother  merely,  or  free  him,  or  give  him  to 
the  apostle  as  his  personal  servant  is  purposely  left  undeter- 
mined in  the  letter.  That  Hilgenfeld,  in  spite  of  Baur,  accepts  the 
letter  as  genuine  is  an  admirable  evidence  of  his  appreciation  of 
the  character  of  this  document  with  its  delicate  tact  and  spirit  of 
amiable  comradeship  testifying  in  every  word  to  its  genuineness. 
But  this  conclusion  of  his  is  not  consistent.  It  would  be  a  refine- 
ment of  deception,  entirely  foreign  to  pseudonymous  literature  of 
that  period,  that  an  author  who  purposed  writing  to  the  Colossians 
in  the  name  of  Paul  should  ferret  out  this  private  letter  in  order 
to  accredit  himself  as  the  genuine  Paul  by  the  allusion  to  it  in  4  :  9, 

VII.       THE    EPISTLE    TO    THE    EPHESIANS. 

When  Schleiermacher  and  DeWette  directed  their  criticism 
against  the  letter  to  the  Ephesians,  their  chief  argument  was 
that  the  general  content  of  the  letter  stood  in  evident  contradic- 
tion with  the  special  address.  This  argument  has  been  abandoned 
since  modern  textual  criticism  has  conclusively  shown  that  the 
words  ev  'E<^€'(ra)in  the  address  are  a  later  addition.  Indeed,  doubt 
of  this  fact,  though  entertained  by  even  so  distinguished  a  com- 
mentator as  Meyer,  must  be  definitely  given  up ;  as  well  as  the 
view,  represented  by  Bleek,  that  the  address,  apparentl}-  incom- 
plete, was  left  so  by  Paul  himself  in  order  to  issue  several  copies 
of  it,  filling  in  local  references  in  each  case.  Why  the  apostle 
designates  his  readers  as  "  saints  who  also  believe  in  Jesus  Christ," 
that  is,  New  Testament  saints  in  contradistinction  to  those  of 
the  Old  Testament,  cannot  be  understood  at  all  if  the  proper 
purpose  of  the  letter  receives  so  little  consideration  as  is  ordi- 
narily the  case.  Likewise,  the  identification  of  the  letter  in  any 
way  with  that  mentioned  in  Col.  4:  16  must  be  definitely  given 
up.  It  is  excluded  b}'  the  fact  that  Paul  in  4  :  15  could  not  send 
greetings  to  the  Laodiceans  in  the  letter  to  the  Colossians,  if,  at 
the  same  time,  he  sent  to  Laodicea  by  the  same  messenger  one 


THE  GENULXENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        53 

addressed  to  them,  or  even  intended  also  for  them.  We  must, 
however,  abandon  all  attempt  to  justify  the  special  address  on  the 
ground  that  the  letter,  at  least  in  the  first  instance,  was  intended 
for  Ephesus  ;  because  in  that  case  we  do  not  at  all  meet  the 
real  difificulties  which  criticism  has  from  the  first  rightly  pointed 
out.  Since  the  readers  are  addressed  constantly  as  Gentile 
Christians,  but  according  to  3:2  ff.;  4:21  could  not  possibly 
have  been  converted  by  Paul,  it  follows  that  this  circular  letter 
was  addressed  to  Gentile-Christian  churches  not  founded  by  the 
apostle,  to  whom  it  was  to  be  carried  and  read  publicly.  Tychi- 
cus,  the  bearer  of  the  letter  (6:  21),  must  have  received  verbal 
instructions  to  that  effect.  That  the  churches  addressed  were 
in  Asia  Minor  is  made  highly  probable  simply  by  the  fact  that 
Tychicus  carried  the  circular  letter  at  the  same  time  that  he 
went  to  Asia  Minor  with  the  Colossian  letter.  The  simplest 
explanation  of  the  later  insertion  of  the  words  Iv  'E^eVw  is  that 
the  letter  intended  for  the  churches  of  Asia  Minor  in  general 
was  at  a  later  time  assumed  to  have  been  addressed  primarily  to 
the  metropolis,  Ephesus. 

The  second  difficulty  which  the  letter  presents  is  its 
extremely  close  relationship  with  the  letter  to  the  Colossians. 
And  this  difficulty  is  not  so  easily  disposed  of  as  is  generally 
thought.  If,  to  be  sure,  we  recall  the  parallel  passages  in  the 
two  letters  to  the  Thessalonians  and  the  parallels  in  the  letters 
to  the  Romans  and  the  Galatians,  the  latter  two  written  years 
apart,  we  cannot  wonder  that  two  letters  written  practically  at 
the  same  time  show  so  great  similarity  both  in  form  and  mat- 
ter. This  becomes,  however,  perfectly  explicable  only  when  we 
suppose  that  the  news  received  from  Colossje  had  introduced 
Paul  into  an  entirely  new  circle  of  ideas,  and  that  as  a  natural 
result,  though  writing  a  circular  letter  to  a  group  of  churches,  he 
was  still  dominated  by  the  thoughts  developed  in  the  letter  to 
the  Colossians.  How  difficult  it  is  to  prove  here  a  strict  literary 
dependence  of  one  letter  upon  the  other  appears  from  the  fact 
that,  although  the  letter  to  the  Ephesians  is  generally  admitted 
to  be  dependent  on  Colossians,  yet  Mayerhoff  held  exactly  the 
opposite   opinion,   and  a  keen  critic  like   Holtzmann  maintains 


54         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

that  the  evidence  points  to  mutual  dependence.  The  decisive 
argument  against  this  view  will  always  be  that  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  a  writer  who,  when  writing  independently, 
could  imitate,  often  so  strikingly,  the  doctrine  and  style  of  Paul 
as  the  writer  of  Ephesians  must  have  done,  should,  in  order  to 
make  his  writings  seem  like  Paul's,  follow  a  Pauline  letter  in 
other  passages  so  slavishly,  and  that  even  in  sections  which  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  main  purpose  of  his  letter.  But 
it  is  still  more  incomprehensible  that  the  fiction  of  6:2i  f. 
should  be  the  first  passage  to  reveal  any  semblance  of  motive 
for  connecting  his  composition  so  closely  with  a  letter  which, 
after  all,  furnished  him  for  his  main  purpose  a  very  unsatisfactory 
point  of  attachment,  especially  as  such  attachment  and  fiction 
would  be  more  likely  to  give  offense  than  to  lend  the  appearance 
of  genuineness  to  his  composition. 

The  standing  problem  for  those  who  maintain  the  genuine- 
ness of  both  letters  is  to  present  proof  that  as  regards  the  paral- 
lel passages  the  same  thoughts  and  expressions  are  used  with 
far  too  great  freedom  to  permit  us  to  speak  of  literary  depend- 
ence. In  respect  to  that,  however,  much  remains  to  be  done, 
since  the  exegesis  of  both  letters  is  far  from  having  attained  to 
the  exactness  and  certainty  which  has  been  reached  in  the  case 
of  many  other  letters  of  Paul.  Above  all  it  must  be  clearly 
understood  that  the  Pauline  spirit  was  far  too  rich  and  free  not 
to  be  able  to  express  the  same  thoughts  in  different  ways  or  to 
give  a  different  application  to  the  same  expressions,  even  in  two 
letters  written  the  one  immediately  after  the  other.  So  the 
letter  to  the  Ephesians  in  spite  of  its  relationship  to  the  Colos- 
sian  letter  exhibits,  in  accordance  with  its  more  general  purpose, 
a  peculiar  style,  or,  more  exactly,  a  peculiar  coloring  of  the  whole 
mode  of  presentation.  It  contains  expressions  like  the  fre- 
quently recurring  to.  iirovpdvta  and  /xe^oSeia  which  is  found  at  least 
twice  (4:14;  6:11);  so  also  Sia^oXos,  meaning  "  devil "  (4:27; 
6:  11),  which  is  wholly  foreign  both  to  the  Colossian  letter  and 
the  other  letters.  Such  facts  are  not  without  importance  to  one 
to  whom  the  close  relationship  of  two  contemporaneous  letters 
presents  in  itself  no  difficulty. 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES         55 

It  is  certainly  a  sign  of  greater  freedom  from  prejudice  on  the 
part  of  criticism  that  Jiilicher  and  liarnack  are  again  inclined 
to  accept  the  genuineness  of  the  letter  which  in  spite  of  its 
peculiarities  preserves  in  so  many  ways  the  undeniable  Pauline 
type.  But  there  will  still  be  need,  in  that  case,  of  making  a 
somewhat  more  thorough  exegetical  investigation  of  many 
points.  I  will  not  speak  of  the  fact  that  the  interpretation  of 
2  :  20  in  its  relation  to  i  Cor.  3  : 9  f.  is  still  unsettled,  since  it 
can  be  said  that  the  varying  application  of  such  a  figure  is  not 
of  itself  remarkable,  even  though  in  this  case  the  underlying 
thought  is  of  too  fundamental  a  character  to  be  irrelevant  to 
the  question  of  the  Pauline  origin.  Yet  upon  first  glance  it  is 
somewhat  remarkable  that  the  apostles  and  prophets  are  called 
aytot  (3:5),  if  we  do  not  observe  that  this  explains  why  they, 
being  sent  forth  of  God  to  his  service,  can  be  set  over  against 
the  sons  of  men.  And  it  is  certain  that  4:11  according  to  its 
usual  interpretation  carries  us  down  beyond  the  date  of  the 
pastoral  letters,  since  here  already  the  government  of  the  church 
and  its  instruction  appear  to  be  united  in  the  same  church  ofificer, 
the  first  impulses  toward  which  appear  in  the  pastoral  letters. 
This  interpretation,  however,  cannot  be  correct,  because  the 
whole  context  clearly  shows  that  only  gifts  of  speech  are 
meant.  Accordingly  the  intention  of  the  addition  kox  SiSdcxKokoi 
must  be  to  designate  the  7rotju,eves  as  those  shepherds  who  lead  the 
individual  churches  to  the  right  pasture  [c/.  John  10:  9  f.),  that 
is,  provide  them  with  the  instruction  and  admonition  which  they 
constantly  require. 

The  Tubingen  school,  to  be  sure,  advanced  nothing  that 
strengthened  the  argument  against  the  genuineness  of  the  letter. 
For  their  contention  that  here  we  recognize  already  the  spirit  of 
the  second  century  loses  its  force,  since  they  find  in  the  letter 
elements  both  gnostic  and  Montanistic,  even  the  same  passage 
(4:7-11)  being  interpreted  by  some  as  gnostic,  by  others  as 
Montanistic.  But  it  is  an  altogether  baseless  claim  that  here  a 
unification  is  sought  after  by  means  of  an  external  synthesis 
of  faith  and  love,  by  weakening  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith,  and   making  concessions  to  the  Judaistic  doctrine 


56        PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

of  justification  by  works.  Whatever  distinguishes  the  doctrine 
of  this  letter  from  that  of  the  earlier  letters  is  found  also  in 
Colossians,  and  is  inseparably  connected  with  the  transformation 
of  Paulinism,  which  in  that  letter  is  set  forth  and  explained. 
When  recent  criticism,  at  least  in  the  case  of  the  majority  of 
its  representatives,  carries  the  composition  of  the  letter  back 
into  the  first  century,  assuming,  however,  that  a  disciple  of  the 
apostle  might  have  been  its  author,  it  surrenders  therewith  all 
definite  standards  by  which  one  can  decide  whether  this  trans- 
formation could  not  have  taken  place  in  the  time  of  Paul  and  in 
his  own  person.  But  that  which  offers  some  ground  for  both 
the  older  and  the  later  opinion  is  the  fact  that  its  exact  aim  on 
the  presupposition  of  the  genuineness  of  the  letter  has  not  yet 
been  made  clear.  There  is  in  the  letter  no  trace  of  heretics, 
about  whom  so  much  has  been  said,  for  4:  14  is  satisfactorily 
interpreted  in  view  of  the  recent  experiences  of  Paul  in  the 
Phrygian  churches,  and  5:16  does  not  refer  to  a  libertine 
gnosis,  but  to  moral  seduction.  Since  now  the  hortatory  portion 
of  the  letter  begins  with  most  impressive  and  explicit  emphasis 
upon  the  unity  of  the  church,  both  earlier  critics  like  De  Wette 
and  recent  ones  like  von  Soden  have  found  in  this  thought  the 
main  object  of  the  letter.  But  this  seems  to  be  a  return  to  the 
Tubingen  criticism,  which  explains  the  letter  from  the  presup- 
position that  efforts  after  union  of  the  parties  in  the  church 
were  made  in  the  second  century.  To  be  sure  it  is  not  difficult 
to  prove  that  nowhere  in  our  letter  is  it  possible  to  find  a  trace 
of  the  concessions  which  are  required  by  this  hypothesis,  since 
a  demand  for  the  moral  preservation  of  Christian  character  is 
found  in  all  the  Pauline  letters  and  is  no  concession  to  the  Juda- 
istic  doctrine  of  righteousness  by  works.  Still,  neither  has  crit- 
icism of  the  other  school  as  yet  explained  what  was  the  occasion 
of  this  exhortation  to  church  unity. 

Nor,  to  be  sure,  has  it  been  recognized  that  in  the  entire 
first  part  of  the  letter  this  exhortation  has  been  prepared  for 
with  conscious  purpose.  If  even  the  address  indicates  that  the 
Gentile-Christian  readers  were  saints,  as  were  the  members  of  the 
Old   Testament   covenant    nation,   the   conclusion    of  the  words 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        57 

of  thanksgiving  in  the  introduction  likewise  emphasizes  how 
the  Gentile  Christians,  though  in  a  different  way,  had  attained 
to  the  same  certainty  of  the  promised  salvation  as  had  the 
Jewish  Christians  ( i  :  13  f.;  f/  vs.  12).  The  entire  second  chap- 
ter turns  upon  the  thought  that  the  Gentile  Christians  had  been 
actually  received  into  the  community  of  the  saints  in  Israel, 
after  the  law  was  abolished  as  a  method  of  salvation  and  life  ; 
and  the  third  chapter  also  begins  with  the  statement  that  the 
apostle  was  entrusted  with  the  gospel,  by  means  of  which  the 
Gentiles  became  actually  partakers  in  the  promise  to  Israel 
(3:6),  a  thing  which,  according  to  Galatians,  chap.  2,  even 
the  primitive  apostles  also  recognized.  Whereupon  it  may  be 
reasonably  asked  what  could  be  the  occasion  of  these  declara- 
tions and  the  exhortations  of  the  second  part  based  upon  them 
if  the  churches  of  Asia  Minor  to  which  the  letter  was  directed 
were,  as  on  the  usual  presupposition  that  Paul  is  responsible 
directly  and  indirectly  for  the  Christianization  of  the  whole  of 
Asia  Minor  they  must  have  been,  altogether  made  up  of  Gentile 
Christians.  In  the  discussion  of  the  Galatian  letter  we  have 
already  seen  that  this  presupposition  is  untenable.  Our  judg- 
ment, moreover,  is  evidently  established  on  a  broader  basis  by 
the  Apocalypse.  The  church  at  Smyrna  which  is  persecuted 
only  by  the  synagogue  of  Satan,  which  blasphemes  the  name 
of  Christ  (2:9),  and  the  church  of  Philadelphia  which  had  suc- 
cessfully prosecuted  its  work  among  the  Jews  and  will  continue  in 
it  (3  :  8  f.)  can  only  have  been  purely  Jewish-Christian  churches. 
It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  there  were  in  Asia  Minor  not  only  Gen- 
tile-Christian churches  —  many  of  them,  indeed,  e.g.,  those  in 
Phrygia,  shown  by  our  letter  not  to  have  been  founded  by  Paul 
— but  also  from  earliest  times  numerous  Jewish-Christian  churches 
which  probably  owed  their  origin  to  the  primitive  apostles  ;  and 
this  being  so,  the  old  conflict  between  the  two  might  here,  as 
was  the  case  in  Galatia,  break  out  again  and  again,  though  the 
opposition  would  not  necessarily  take  the  form  of  Pharisaic 
legalism,  as  it  had  done  in  Galatia,  but  might  assume  that  of 
theosophic  asceticism  such  as  the  apostle  had  so  recently  met 
in  Phrygia.     And   in    view   of  this  we   can  understand    how  the 


58         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

apostle  should  feci  constrained  earnestly  to  admonish  the  Gen- 
tile-Christian churches  of  proconsular  Asia  that  by  their  recep- 
tion into  the  community  of  the  saints  and  by  their  participation 
in  the  promises  once  made  to  Israel,  itself  now  free  from  the 
obligation  of  the  law,  the  old  antithesis  between  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile was  once  for  all  abolished. 

From  this  point  of  view,  all  the  admonitions  of  this  letter, 
growing  out  of  the  one  chief  admonition  to  maintain  the  unity 
of  the  church,  are  seen  in  a  new  light.  For  they  all  turn  on  the 
fact  that  Christianity  necessarily  carries  with  it  the  complete 
putting  off  of  the  old  man  and  the  putting  on  of  the  new,  the 
description  of  which  issues  in  the  exhortation  to  walk  in  love 
after  the  example  of  Christ  (4  :  i  f.;  5  :  2),  and  on  the  warning 
against  all  alliance  with  the  old  heathen  iniquity,  even  in  the 
form  of  apparently  innocent  association  with  their  unbelieving 
countrymen  (5:3-20),  the  perils  of  which  Paul  had  formerly 
learned  by  severe  experiences  at  Corinth.  But  after  his  latest 
experiences  he  was  compelled  to  add  that  asceticism  was  as 
unnecessary  for  this  regulation  of  the  whole  life  in  a  Christian 
spirit  as  was  legalism  (5:21 — 6:9).  From  this  there  follows 
yet  another  consequence.  The  remarkable  literary  resemblances 
between  the  Ephesian  letter  and  the  first  epistle  of  Peter  have 
indeed  seemed  to  almost  all  recent  critics  explicable  only  on 
the  hypothesis  that  the  former,  being  dependent  on  the  latter, 
was,  though  attributed  to  Paul,  spurious.  On  my  view  of  the 
epistle  of  Peter,  according  to  which  it  is  older  than  Galatians, 
and  was  known  to  Paul  when  he  wrote  his  letter  to  the  Romans, 
it  is  not  impossible  that  the  epistle  to  the  Ephesians  was  written 
with  some  reference  to  it.  And  even  if  a  spokesman  of  this 
school  of  criticism  like  Holtzmann  calls  it  "sheer  nonsense," 
it  nevertheless  remains  true  that  it  accords  entirely  with  the 
aim  of  this  letter  that  Paul  should,  with  deliberate  purpose 
and  openly,  employ  the  language  of  an  older  apostolic  letter 
already  in  circulation  in  Asia  Minor  and  held  in  high  esteem. 
He  wished  to  show  the  Jewish  Christians,  who  would  learn  of 
a  letter  of  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  which  was  in  cir- 
culation  in  that  region   just  as    Paul   and  the  Gentile  Christians 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        59 

would  hear  of  the  letter  of  Peter,  that  the  Gentiles  were  educated 
in  the  same  Christian  truth  and  manner  of  life  as  they  them- 
selves. Only  on  this  view  can  the  obstacle  on  which  the  genu- 
ineness of  the  letter  seems  likely  after  all  to  be  shattered  be 
really  removed. 

VIII.    THE    EPISTLE    TO    THE    PHILIFPIANS. 

Concerning  the  epistle  to  the  Philippians  it  may  apparently 
be  said  at  the  outset  that  criticism  has  only  served  to  establish 
anew  its  genuineness.  Denial  of  its  genuineness  begins  with 
Baur,  who  rejected  it  along  with  the  other  ej)istles  of  the 
imprisonment.  But  in  order  to  find  echoes  of  gnosticism  in  it 
he  was  obliged  to  explain  2  :  6  from  the  history  of  the  Valen- 
tinian  Sophia,  and  in  order  to  assign  it  to  its  place  in  the  concilia- 
tion movements  of  the  second  century  he  had  to  identify  the 
Clement  mentioned  in  4  :  3  with  the  disciple  of  Peter  who 
appears  in  the  Clementine  legend,  and  whom  he  regards  as  one 
of  the  ot  CK  T^s  KaiVapos  otKt'as  (4:22).  Baur's  pupils  even  inter- 
preted 4  :  2  as  referring  not  literally  to  two  women,  but  to  two 
parties  which,  in  the  guise  of  an  appeal  to  his  o-vV^uyos,  i.  e., 
in  their  opinion,  Peter,  Paul  admonishes  to  be  of  the  same 
mind  (4:2,  3).  With  remarkable  unanimity  all  the  leaders  of 
the  more  recent  criticism  have  decisively  rejected  this  opinion 
of  Baur  and  his  followers,  and  even  Hilgenfeld  has  recognized 
that  the  epistle  is  genuine.  In  fact  there  are  few  cases  in 
which  the  impossibility  of  so  much  as  conceiving  of  a  letter 
as  the  work  of  a  pseudonymous  tendency-writer  is  so  evident 
as  here.  And  yet  in  the  Jalirbiiclier  fiir  protest.  Thcologie  for 
1875-6  Holsten  undertook  to  recover  the  position  which  had 
apparently  been  lost.  But  at  what  cost !  According  to  his 
view  the  epistle  is  no  longer  to  be  regarded  as  a  product  of 
the  second  century,  but  as  having  arisen  between  70  and  80 
A.  D.,  being  written,  in  order,  by  a  continuation  of  the  concilia- 
tory policy  which  the  apostle  inaugurated  in  his  epistle  to  the 
Romans,  to  restore  the  inner  unity  of  the  Philippian  church. 
The  personal  references  of  the  letter  are  all  supposed  to  rest 
upon  genuine  tradition  ;  and  only  a  slight  un-Pauline  tinge  is  to 


60        PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

be  discovered  in  doctrine,  in  language,  and  in  the  appreciation 
of  the  gift  which  ostensibly  furnishes  the  occasion  for  the  let- 
ter. But  even  such  a  critic  as  Paul  Schmidt  repudiated  this 
position  (in  i88o)  as  "New  Testament  hypercriticism."  And 
really,  that  at  a  time  when  everybody  in  Philip[)i  knew  that  the 
apostle  was  dead,  and  had  never  written  a  letter  to  the  church,  a 
disciple  of  the  apostle  should  fabricate  a  letter  from  him  to  the 
church,  in  which  the  apostle  expresses  the  confident  expectation 
of  seeing  them  again  (1:25;  2  :  24),  is  a  theory  which  would 
not  have  the  faintest  appearance  of  probability,  even  if  the  view 
that  the  letter  is  genuine  labored  under  the  most  serious  diffi- 
culties. 

Nevertheless  I  cannot  admit  that  the  question  has  been  solved 
by  the  more  recent  criticism.  Measured  by  the  standard  which 
this  criticism  is  accustomed  to  employ,  the  epistle  to  the  Philip- 
pians  must  be  rejected  as  spurious.  By  admitting  that  it  is 
impossible  to  understand  this  letter  on  the  assumption  of  its 
pseudonymous  character,  criticism  has  allowed  itself  to  be  led 
into  making  a  concession  which  is  absolutely  contradictory  to 
its  other  assumptions.  Holsten  is  undoubtedly  right  in  main- 
taining that  according  to  the  standard  of  the  great  doctrinal  and 
controversial  epistles  the  doctrinal  views  of  Philippians  con- 
tain much  that  is  surprising.  With  what  triumphant  assurance 
criticism  would,  if  it  served  its  purpose,  reject  as  spurious  a  let- 
ter alleged  to  be  from  Paul  in  which  he  declares  himself  "touch- 
ing the  righteousness  which  is  in  the  law  blameless"  (3:6),  on 
the  ground  that  the  real  Paul  everywhere  proceeds  on  the  view 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  righteousness  under  the  law.  It 
really  required  no  very  artificial  exegesis  to  extract  from  3  :  9 
the  meaning  that  justification  is  involved  in  vital  union  with 
Christ  —  a  view  by  which,  however,  Paul's  doctrine  of  salvation  is 
exactly  reversed.  A  verse  like  4  :  8  actually  reminds  one  more 
of  the  moralizing  tone  of  the  pastoral  epistles  than  of  the  ethics 
rooted  in  the  facts  of  salvation  which  are  characteristic  of  the 
older  letters.  One  is  indeed  quite  justified  in  asking  with  Hols- 
ten why  the  title  of  apostle  is  lacking  in  the  address,  and  where 
the  eTTt'o-KOTTot  Ktti  StaKovoi,  of  whom  not  a  trace  is   to  be  found  else- 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        6 1 

where  in  the  Pauline  letters,  suddenly  come  from.  And  it  is  by 
no  means  easy  to  explain  how  the  same  Paul  that  in  1:23  is  only 
in  doubt  whether  he  shall  choose  to  die  immediately  in  order  to 
be  with  Christ,  or  to  abide  in  the  flesh  for  the  sake  of  the  church, 
in  3  :  1 1  is  apparently  not  even  yet  sure  of  his  resurrection  from 
the  dead.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  admonition  of  the 
two  women  coram  publico  (4:2)  is  altogether  unparalleled  in 
the  Pauline  letters.  Of  course  all  tliese  difficulties  can  be 
obviated,  but  not  so  long  as  one  retains  the  finicalness  which 
characterizes  all  our  modern  criticism. 

But  it  is  also  true  that  the  whole  type  of  doctrine  of  our 
letter  resembles  that  of  the  letters  of  the  imprisonment  much 
more  closely  than  it  does  that  of  the  great  doctrinal  and  contro- 
versial letters,  although  when  account  is  taken  of  the  relatively 
small  amount  of  doctrinal  material  in  Philippians  the  difference 
is  not  so  marked.  There  is  not  lacking  a  certain  strong  empha- 
sis on  the  gnosis  ( i  :  9  ;  3:8,10).  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
Christology  goes  beyond  that  of  the  older  letters,  or  that  empha- 
sis upon  the  connection  between  the  doctrine  of  salvation 
and  practical  life  takes  the  place  of  the  strong  insistence  on 
doctrine  which  characterizes  the  older  letters.  In  passages  like 
2  :  10  and  3  :  20  there  is  a  clear  enough  reference  to  the  cosmic 
significance  of  the  saving  work  of  Christ.  The  emphatic 
admonition  to  unity  in  which  the  exhortation  2  :  2  f .  really  cul- 
minates reminds  us  strongly  of  a  characteristic  feature  of  the 
letters  of  the  imprisonment;  and  what  3  :  12-16  says  about  the 
true  Christian  perfection  reminds  us  again  of  what  the  Colossian 
letter  intimates  about  the  false  ways  by  which  the  theosophists 
of  Colossae  professed  to  lead  men  to  perfection.  Holsten's  lists 
of  words,  by  which  he  undertakes  to  distinguish  what  is  Pauline, 
un-Pauline,  and  anti-Pauline,  need  not  be  taken  seriously  ;  but  if, 
after  the  prevailing  fashion  of  modern  criticism,  one  stumble 
over  every  new  expression  and  note  the  absence  of  every  catch- 
word of  the  old  Pauline  letters,  it  is  as  easy  to  prove  the  spu- 
riousness  of  Philippians  as  of  Ephesians.  The  history  of  the 
criticism  of  the  letter  to  the  Philippians  issues  of  necessity  in  a 
dilemma;   either  it  must  be   recognized  that  the  whole  previous 


62         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

method  of  criticism  has  been  in  certain  respects  very  faulty  and 
must  undergo  a  thorough  reform,  or  we  must  go  back  and  ques- 
tion again  the  genuineness  of  Philippians.  We  have  not  yet 
reached  our  goal,  not  even  with  respect  to  the  letter  to  the 
Philippians. 

The  chief  reason  for  this  state  of  affairs  is  that  criticism  as  a 
whole  has  accomplished  but  little  for  the  interpretation  of  the 
epistle  to  the  Philippians,  and  that  the  historical  situation  which 
the  letter  presupposes  is  very  far  from  being  cleared  up.  Or,  is  it 
possible  that  some  agreement  has  actually  been  reached,  at  least 
respecting  the  condition  of  the  church  which  the  letter  presup- 
poses? It  will  be  useful  to  recall  the  course  which  the  investi- 
gation of  this  matter  has  taken.  In  the  case  of  the  epistle  to  the 
Philippians  it  was  the  older  criticism  that  held  that  the  church  was 
troubled  by  reason  of  the  Judaistic  errorists  that  were  supposed 
to  be  referred  to  in  chap.  3.  A  dark  picture  was  painted  of  the 
parties  into  which  the  church  was  divided,  and  Rheinwald,  in 
1827,  represented  it  as  threatened  with  extinction  by  the  division 
between  Jewish  and  Gentile  Christians.  Then  came  a  reaction, 
which,  however,  did  not  lead  to  the  discovery  of  the  seat  of  the 
error  until  Schinz  in  1833  proved  that  the  church  was  a  purely 
Gentile-Christian  body,  in  which  there  were  no  such  parties,  and 
that  the  praise  which  the  apostle  gave  the  church  was  wholly 
irreconcilable  with  the  supposition  of  their  existence.  But  even 
he  put  in  the  place  of  conflict  over  doctrine  which  was  said  to 
have  divided  the  church  only  on  the  one  side  a  boastful  cele- 
brating of  their  own  superiority,  called  forth  by  personal  dis- 
agreements, and  on  the  other  a  jealous  belittling  of  the  merits 
of  others.  Almost  all  modern  interpreters  have  followed  him. 
But  does  this  view  accord  any  better  with  the  praise  repeatedly 
bestowed  on  all  of  the  members  of  the  church  individually  i^cf. 
I  :  3,  7,  8  ;   4:1)?     And  what  basis  is  there  for  this  view? 

It  is  simply  the  intolerable  fashion  the  interpreters  have  of 
assuming,  the  moment  the  apostle  utters  a  word  against  a  preva- 
lent sin  which  is  inherent  in  us  all,  that  his  readers  must  be 
guilty  of  it  in  a  very  exceptional  degree.  Accordingly  evidence 
for  this   must   be  extorted   from  2  :  2  ff.      But  would   Paul  reallv 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        63 

have  felt  called  upon  to  reprove  before  the  whole  church  the 
quarrelsomeness  of  two  women,  which  was  probably  due  in  the 
two  cases  to  similar  causes,  if  the  church  was  itself  guilty  of 
exactly  the  same  fault  ?  Certainly  not.  Accordingly  both  on  the 
side  of  the  defenders  and  on  that  of  the  deniers  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  letter  there  is  more  or  less  tendency  to  return  to  the 
old  view.  And  so  again  we  have  the  theory  of  two  parties  with 
a  "  divided  Christian  consciousness,"  or  Judaizing  heretical  teach- 
ers. But  I  cannot  discover  that  the  new  arguments  in  defense 
of  this  view  are  any  better,  or  that  the  old  arguments  against  it 
have  been  refuted.  Of  course  the  church  which  the  apostle 
designates  as  his  joy  and  his  crown  is  composed  of  human 
beings.  But  I  cannot  allow  myself  to  distort  the  picture  which 
the  apostle  gives  of  it  by  introducing  any  kind  of  factious  dis- 
order. The  epistle  is  not  a  letter  of  reproof.  When  he  closes 
the  expression  of  his  joyfulness  in  imprisonment,  of  which  no 
possible  exigency  can  rob  him,  with  the  statement  that  it  is  in 
their  power,  by  standing  fast  in  one  spirit,  striving  for  the  faith 
of  the  gospel,  as  well  as  by  a  harmony  based  on  self-denying 
humility,  not  only  to  promote  their  own  spiritual  welfare,  but 
also  to  increase  and  share  his  joy  (  i  :  27 — 2  :  1 8) ,  this  very  form 
of  expressing  his  admonition  shows  conclusively  that  he  is  not 
endeavoring  to  heal  a  serious  rupture  of  the  church. 

But  even  in  respect  to  the  situation  in  Rome  to  which  refer- 
ence is  made  in  1:14-18,  there  is  anything  but  clearness  and 
agreement  of  opinion  among  scholars.  The  common  opinion  is 
that  here  also  there  is  a  reference  to  Judaizing  heretics,  and  it 
was  especially  natural  for  those  to  adopt  this  opinion  who 
regarded  the  Roman  church  as  essentially  or  in  large  part  a 
Jewish-Christian  body.  But  in  that  case  the  way  in  which  Paul 
minimizes  the  doctrinal  differences  between  these  people  and  him- 
self, and  rejoices  if  only  Christ  is  made  known,  whatever  the 
method,  involves  so  glaring  a  contradiction  with  Gal.  1:8  f.  that 
it  would  be  impossible  to  ascribe  the  letter  to  Paul.  Of  what 
avail  is  the  paltry  subterfuge  that  Paul  was  softened  by  age,  or 
that  the  church  in  question  was  not  one  of  his  own  founding? 
On    this    point    Paul   could   never   change,    could    never   regard 


64         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

that  other  gospel  as  of  equal  value  with  his  own.  The  latest 
opponent  of  the  epistle  (Holsten)  and  its  latest  defender  (Paul 
Schmidt)  both  frankly  admit  this,  though,  to  be  sure,  critics  like 
Holtzmann  and  Jiilicher  still  find  no  difficulty  whatever  in  the 
old  opinion.  Nevertheless  exegetically  the  latter  is  simply 
impossible,  since  the  antithesis  between  the  Judaizing  and  the 
Pauline  preaching  cannot  be  expressed  by  elVe  -rrpoffxiaeL  elVe  aX-qOcia. 
And  where  has  Paul  ever  accused  his  Judaizing  opponents  simply 
of  preaching  Christ  from  envy  of  him  (8ia  <f>66vov,  vs.  15)  ?  He 
could  never  have  done  so.  These  opponents  must  have  been 
personal  rivals  of  the  apostle,  and  in  that  case  there  is  no 
ground  for  holding  that  they  were  Jewish  Christians.  As  long 
ago  as  1859  I  advanced  the  opinion  in  my  commentary  that  they 
were  old  teachers  of  the  church  who,  finding  themselves  forced 
into  the  background  by  the  unexpectedly  prolonged  stay  of  the 
apostle  in  Rome,  where,  despite  his  imprisonment,  he  became 
the  central  figure  of  the  church,  sought  by  redoubled  zeal  to 
outstrip  him,  and  by  criticism  of  himself  and  of  his  work  to 
destroy  his  popularity.  I  admit  that  I  cannot  prove  this  to  be 
the  case,  and  I  am  entirely  ready  to  accept  any  suggestion  that 
is  more  in  accord  with  the  words  ;  but  I  cannot  go  back  to  the 
old  impossible  views. 

The  hypotheses  which  have  gathered  around  the  passage  3  :  i 
furnish  a  sad  illustration  of  how  matters  stand  in  the  exegesis  of 
Philippians.  Most  interpreters  have  found  here  an  allusion  to 
earlier  letters  to  the  Philippians,  as  even  the  hypothesis-spinning 
criticism  of  the  old  rationalists  found  here  the  beginning  of  a 
new  letter.  But  the  most  recent  criticism  of  the  Hausraths, 
Volters,  and  Clemens,  revels  in  ever  new  inventions  of  letters  of 
which  our  letter  is  an  unskillful  patchwork.  And  what  is  the 
reason  of  all  this  ?  Simply  that  they  will  not  see  that  the 
whole  previous  part  of  the  letter  has  been  treating  of  that  Chris- 
tian joy  of  which  Paul  is,  ex  professo,  now  about  to  speak  again. 
Even  the  prelate  Bengel  long  ago  recognized  that  the  epistle  to 
the  Philippians  might  properly  be  described  as  epistola  de  gaiidio. 
Such  a  letter  may  not  seem  to  modern  criticism  worthy  of  the 
apostle.      But  it  gives  no  evidence  of  having  any  other  purpose. 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        65 

The  flourishing  Macedonian  churches  were  just  those  that  were 
most  affected  by  the  hostility  of  their  unbelieving  countrymen. 
To  this  was  added  the  news  of  the  imprisonment  of  their  apostle, 
which  had  lasted  now  for  years,  and  of  the  complete  cessation 
of  his  missionary  work.  These  things  lay  like  a  heavy  burden 
upon  his  beloved  church  ;  and  for  this  reason  he  could  not  better 
repay  the  gift  they  had  sent  him  than  to  kindle  in  them,  despite 
all  the  burden  of  the  present,  that  profound  joy  in  believing 
which  filled  him,  though  in  chains  and  bonds.  In  chap,  i  he 
had  said  that  they  should  promote  and  share  this  his  joy; 
and  all  that  he  says  in  chap.  2  concerning  the  sending  of 
Timothy  and  the  return  of  Epaphroditus  has  to  do  with  the 
fact  that  he  desires  to  do  what  he  can  to  promote  their  joy.  Is 
it  to  be  wondered  at  that  in  3  :  i  he  accompanies  his  yalp^rt  iv  Kvpi<^ 
with  an  apology  for  always  writing  the  same  thing  ? 

But  that  throughout  the  third  chapter  also  he  is  speaking  of 
the  ground,  means,  and  goal  of  true  Christian  joy  is  not  so 
readily  conceded.  Here  it  has  been  customary  to  find  a  warning 
against  Jewish-Christian  heretics,  either  in  Rome  or  in  Philippi ; 
the  same  Paul  who  in  1:18  was  so  mild  in  his  attitude  toward 
them  speaking  here  in  a  tone  that  outdoes  all  the  polemic 
against  them  that  we  have  seen  in  Galatians  and  Corinthians. 
But  this  interpretation  would  require  him  to  use  /JAeVcTe  a-no 
and  not  ^AcVeTe  with  the  accusative,  as  i  Cor.  1:26;  10:  18 
show.  The  verb,  three  times  repeated  for  rhetorical  emphasis, 
shows,  moreover,  that  there  are  three  separate  categories  of  men 
to  whom  he  directs  their  attention,  in  order,  by  means  of  the 
contrast  which  these  present,  to  develop  the  ground  on  which 
the  true  Christian  joy  rests  (3  :  3-1 1),  the  means  by  which  it  is 
to  be  continually  promoted  (3:  12-16),  and  what  its  final  goal 
is  (3:17-21).  That  the  unbelieving  Jews  constitute  the  third 
of  the  categories  ought  never  to  have  been  overlooked.  Where 
has  Paul  designated  the  Jewish  Christians  as  the  irepLTOfirj  simply? 
Least  of  all  could  he  do  so  here,  where  by  the  substitution  of 
the  word  KaTaTofx-q  {cf.  Gal.  5:12)  he  intimates  that  because  of 
their  unbelief,  by  which  they  have  lost  all  the  privileges  of  the 
7rc/3iTo/x7/,  it  has  become  a  useless  mutilation.      Recent  critics  also, 


66         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

like  Hokstra,  Holsten,  Lipsius,  and  Paul  Schmidt,  opponents 
and  defenders  of  the  genuineness  of  the  letter  alike,  recognize 
this.  The  privileges  of  which  unbelieving  Judaism  boasts,  in 
which  it  puts  its  trust,  and  the  joy  with  which  the  apostle  at  his 
conversion  gave  up  these  things  for  the  sake  of  Christ  who  is 
his  only  joy,  is  the  theme  of  the  following  paragraphs. 

But  furthermore  the  kukoi  epyarat  are  far  from  being  the 
ipydrat  SoXlol  of  2  Cor.  11:13.  They  are  those  teachers  in  Rome 
whom  Paul  describes  in  1:15-17,  who  take  pleasure  in  envy 
and  strife  and  in  making  trouble  for  him,  as  they  think,  in  his 
bonds.  And  what  can  the  oix  on  of  3  :  12  signify  except  that  he 
refers  to  the  charge  of  these  people  that  he  imagined  himself 
to  be  already  perfect?  For  certainly  nothing  that  he  has  pre- 
viously said  in  the  passage  itself  furnishes  the  slightest  oppor- 
tunity for  the  misunderstanding  which  he  wishes  here  to  avoid. 
On  the  contrary  it  is  they  who  by  their  assumption  of  supe- 
riority to  him  and  their  rivalry  with  him  make  such  a  claim. 
True  Christian  joy  can  be  attained  only  when  the  Christian  is 
continually  pressing  forward  toward  the  goal  in  order  ever 
more  perfectly  to  apprehend  Christ,  when  he  knows  no  other 
perfection  than  to  be  always  striving  after  greater  perfection.  The 
ultimate  purpose  of  his  whole  letter  is  that  the  church  should 
by  continually  pressing  forward  toward  this  goal  learn  to  over- 
come the  spirit  of  despondency  which  oppresses  it,  and  its  anxi- 
ety for  the  future  in  the  midst  of  all  the  threatenings  of  the 
present. 

But  exegesis  has  done  its  worst  in  the  passage  3:17-21 
The  people  there  described  have  actually  been  held  to  be  Jew- 
ish-Christian heretics.  To  be  sure  the  opinion  commonly  held 
by  interpreters  down  to  the  present  day,  that  they  were  nom- 
inal Christians  living  immoral  lives,  is  not  much  better.  Can 
such  a  thing  be  possible  in  the  beloved  and  highly  praised 
Philippian  church,  for  every  member  of  which  the  apostle  can 
make  his  supplication  with  joy  (1:3)?  If  in  Christendom  today 
there  are  such  nominal  Christians — God  forbid  that  it  should  be 
so!  —  who,  though  they  have  been  baptized,  have  never  learned 
what  it  means  to  be  a  Christian,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  then. 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES        67 

when  to  be  known  as  a  Christian  brought  only  disgrace  and  perse- 
cution, there  were  among  the  Christians  enemies  of  the  cross  of 
Christ,  who  with  shameful  indulgence  practiced  idolatry.  On  the 
contrary,  it  can  only  be  heathen  whom  in  vs.  2  he  designates 
as  KvVcs  {cf.  Rev.  22:  15)  in  order  thus  to  characterize  their 
impure,  indecent  way  of  life  —  persons  respecting  whom  he  had 
once  cherished  the  hope  that  they  could  be  won  for  the  gospel, 
but  whom  now  he  is  compelled  with  deep  sorrow  to  describe  as 
given  over  to  perdition.  In  contrast  with  them  he  shows  how 
the  man  who  finds  his  joy  in  Christ  alone  and  has  his  citizenship 
with  him  to  whom  he  belongs,  in  heaven,  looks  for  him  as  his 
deliverer  from  the  perdition  to  which  these  others  have  fallen, 
and  having  reached  the  goal  actually  attains  that  which  the 
heathen  vainly  seek  in  their  wrong  way  —  as  well  as  the  glorifi- 
cation of  the  bodily  life  which  they  think  to  accomplish  by  their 
deification  of  the  KotAta,  and  the  honor  which  they  seek  in  their 
shame. 

Since  1859  I  have  maintained  this  interpretation.  But  exe- 
gesis still  goes  on  contentedly  in  its  old  impossible  path.  No 
wonder  that  the  criticism  of  Philippians,  despite  all  the  defense 
of  it  even  by  recent  critics,  is  unable  to  reach  final  conclusions. 
A  book  must  first  be  understood  before  a  final  judgment  con- 
cerning its  author  can  be  pronounced.  I  believe  that  I  have 
shown  that  the  epistle  to  the  Philippians  is  still  very  far  from 
being  understood. 

IX.    THE    PASTORAL    EPISTLES. 

The  pastoral  epistles  have  been  to  apologetics  a  perennial 
source  of  difficulty.  Criticism  in  all  its  various  schools  has  main- 
tained that  their  spuriousness  was  definitively  settled.  But  if, 
as  we  have  learned  since  Baur's  time,  the  task  of  criticism  is  to  be 
recognized  as  the  unfolding  of  the  historical  understanding  of  a 
document  and  of  its  origin,  then  in  this  instance  its  task  is  still 
very  far  from  having  been  accomplished.  One  of  the  most  sig- 
nificant points  which  apologetics  has  constantly  urged  against  the 
view  that  here  is  a  case  of  purely  fictitious  documents  passing 
for  Paul's  was  the  abundance  of  purely  personal  and  historical  ref- 


68         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

erences  appearing,  especially  in  the  letter  to  Titus  and  in  Second 
Timothy,  for  the  fabrication  of  which  no  intelligible  reason  can 
be  seen.  Moreover  we  cannot  quite  stop  with  these  two  letters 
It  is  true  that  in  respect  to  the  two  men  who  in  i  Tim.  i :  20  are 
delivered  over  to  Satan,  Ji'ilicher  as  a  compromise  allows  that 
perhaps  the  writer  has  in  mind  as  a  model  an  event  of  an  earlier 
period.  It  is,  however,  noteworthy  that  both  names  recur  in 
2  Tim.  3:17;  4:14.  And,  to  say  the  least,  the  advice  which  is 
given  to  the  disciple  of  the  apostle  respecting  his  health  in 
I  Tim.  5  :  23,  in  a  connection  so  obscure  that  a  pseudonymous 
author  would  surely  have  no  occasion  to  bring  it  in  just  there, 
appears  so  very  strange  as  to  be  exceedingly  difficult  of  compre 
hension  as  a  mere  fabrication.  Criticism  has  always  granted  with 
regard  to  the  other  letters  that  they  may  be  based  on  genuine  Paul- 
ine elements.  Second  Timothy,  especially,  was  regarded  by  Cred- 
ner  in  his  Introduction,  dated  1836,  as  originating  by  combination 
and  interpolation  from  two  genuine  letters  of  Paul,  and  Lemme  in 
1882  accepted  the  whole  letter  as  genuine  with  the  exception  of 
a  single  somewhat  extensive  interpolation.  Knoke  and  Hesse 
have  recently  (1887,  1889)  attempted  neatly  to  extract  the 
Pauline  elements  from  all  three  letters.  Even  such  thoroughly 
positive  theologians  as  Grau  and  Plitt  proposed  to  defend  the 
genuineness  of  the  pastoral  letters  in  this  sense  only,  and  also 
Kiibel  believed  that  the  letters  had  received  an  odor  of  ecclesi- 
asticism  by  a  final  redaction. 

How  the  two  most  recent  critics  of  the  pastoral  letters  stand 
on  this  question  is  well  worthy  of  consideration.  Jiilicher,  quite 
in  the  manner  of  Credner,  seeks  to  show  how  the  author  of  Second 
Timothy  had  before  him  fragments  of  two  different  letters  to 
Timothy  which  he  put  together  unskillfully  because  he  incor- 
rectly regarded  them  as  fragments  of  one  and  the  same  letter. 
In  his  reverence  for  Paul  he  could  not  but  give  them  to  the 
church  ;  but  as  a  couple  of  fragments  were  of  little  service  to  it, 
he  filled  them  out  by  putting  into  the  mouth  of  Paul  what  the 
Christian  community  of  his  day  needed.  In  the  same  way  he 
edited  a  fragment  of  a  letter  to  Titus.  Later  with  no  such  Pauline 
documentary  basis  he  wrote  First  Timothy  entire  airre?ite  calarno, 


THE  GENUINENESS  OE  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES        69 

freely  gathering  together  his  fundamental  ideas  which  did  not 
yet  seem  to  him  to  be  clearly  and  convincingly  set  forth  in  the 
two  other  letters.  The  critics  themselves  would  have  been  [)ri- 
marily  responsible  for  what  seems  to  be  an  interpolation  with  a 
purpose  by  a  skillful  forger,  since  they  would  have  sought  to 
determine  that  which  was  genuine  even  down  to  single  words 
and  syllables,  and  to  prove  with  the  acuteness  of  a  modern  critic 
his  method  of  using  his  material.  Harnack  says  frankly  that 
the  pastoral  letters  are  based  on  Pauline  letters,  or,  more  exactly, 
on  fragments  of  such  letters  ;  sections  of  Second  Timothy  of  con- 
siderable extent  and  importance,  and  a  scant  third  of  the  letter 
to  Titus,  can  be  claimed  as  genuine,  even  if  perhaps  few  verses 
apart  from  the  historical  references  are  reproduced  without 
change;  in  First  Timothy,  on  the  other  hand,  while  Pauline 
material  is  found,  no  single  verse  bears  a  clear  indication  of 
Pauline   origin. 

On  this  basis,  indeed,  the  spuriousness  of  the  pastoral 
epistles  in  the  earlier  sense  is  given  up ;  their  case,  however, 
is  but  little  strengthened,  since  even  upon  Harnack's  form  of 
the  hypothesis  it  may  be  urged,  as  Jiilicher  rightly  says  of  his 
own,  that  every  attempt  to  separate  the  Pauline  groundwork 
from  the  later  redaction  is  utterly  hopeless  and  leads  only  to  an 
idle  play  of  individual  acuteness.  In  that  case,  however,  it 
is  obvious  to  remark  that  no  clear  idea  of  those  fragments 
can  properly  be  obtained,  and  so  it  becomes  utterly  impossible 
to  decide  the  question  how  far  it  was  still  in  accord  with  the 
spirit  of  the  times  to  make  sucji  use  of  them  or,  more  exactly, 
thus  to  work  them  over,  and  whether  in  that  case  the  charge 
of  conscious  forgery  can  be  met.  Harnack  occasionally  inti- 
mates that  in  that  time  epistolary  material  would  have  been 
protected  against  interpolation  ;  but  if  so  it  must  be  held  that 
those  Pauline  fragments  were  not  written  in  real  epistolary 
form.  In  confirmation  of  this  Jiilicher  also,  although  finding 
in  the  salutations  the  clearest  traces  of  Pauline  diction,  regards 
it  as  incomprehensible  that  the  apostle  should  designate  him- 
self in  writing  to  intimate  friends  as  he  does  in  these  saluta- 
tions.     It   seems,  however,  very   questionable    whether,   on   this 


70        PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

supposition  that  the  author  used  those  epistolary  fragments, 
this  is  a  case  of  that  kind  of  pseudonymous  authorship  which 
we  describe  as  altogether  innocent.  That  the  author  did  not 
wish  valuable  material  such  as  words  of  admonition  and 
didactic  exposition  to  be  lost  one  can  easily  understand,  but 
most  of  these  historical  or  personal  notes,  greetings,  and  com- 
missions, which  were  said  to  account  for  the  existence  of  such 
epistolary  fragments,  cannot  be  said  to  belong  to  material  of 
this  class.  If,  nevertheless,  the  author  of  his  own  preference 
introduced  these  glosses  or  notes,  although  not  in  the  least  con- 
nected with  the  purpose  of  his  composition,  he  could  not  have 
had  the  intention  to  accredit  them  as  Pauline,  and  no  one 
would  hold  that  this  method  is  in  harmony  with  the  character 
of  naive  literary  composition.  My  feeling  is  that  this  is  the 
course  which  would  be  pursued  by  a  later  writer  who,  as  Jiilicher 
says,  was  inventing  a  situation  in  accordance  with  which  he  ascribes 
to  the  apostle  the  sending  of  instructions  to  renowned  leaders  of 
the  churches.  To  this  must  be  added  that  with  every  expan- 
sion of  the  genuine  material  underlying  these  epistles  the  ques- 
tion recurs  anew  whether  the  style  and  diction  of  the  letters 
can  really  be  so  utterly  un-Pauline  as  criticism  afifirms.  But 
we  have  abundantly  proven  above  that  precisely  at  this  point 
the  method  of  the  critical  school  is  in  -uro;ent  need  of  revision, 
so  that  it  is  impossible  to  solve  this  problem  by  details  ;  fur- 
thermore if  we  abandon  the  attempt  to  separate  the  genuine 
Pauline  basis  from  the  later  additions  the  problem  is  abso- 
lutely insoluble. 

We  are  thus  forced,  notwithstanding  the  new  turn  which  the 
investigation  into  the  genuineness  of  these  epistles  seems  to  have 
taken  in  recent  criticism,  again  to  propound  the  question  whether 
these  letters  in  the  recension  in  which  we  possess  them  abso- 
lutely preclude  the  view  that  they  are  in  reality  what  they  claim 
to  be.  Apologetics  has  always  afifirmed  this  to  be  the  case.  Still 
it  has  deprived  its  efforts  of  all  success,  because  a  large  number 
of  its  spokesmen  have  persisted  in  relating  the  letters  to  the  life 
of  the  apostle  as  known  to  us.  We  must,  however,  concede,  and 
that  for  the  reason  often  mentioned,  that  this  is  utterly  impossi- 


THE  GENUINENESS  OE  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES         7  I 

ble.  All  artificial  combinations  do  not  suffice  to  lend  to  this 
assunnption  even  a  shadow  of  plausibility.  If  these  letters  are 
to  be  considered  as  genuine,  they  must  have  been  composed  at 
a  later  period  of  the  apostle's  life  which  is  unknown  to  us.  It 
is  true  that  only  recently  Jiilicher  has  again  argued  very  stren- 
uously that  in  view  of  the  fullness  of  our  traditions  the  whole 
notion  of  a  later  period  unknown  to  us  is  improbable,  being  in 
fact  simply  a  precarious  postulate  of  those  who,  at  whatever 
cost,  wish  to  maintain  something  that  is  absolutely  untenable. 
It  is  to  be  said  on  the  other  side,  however,  that  Harnack,  though 
maintaining  that  these  letters  in  their  present  form  are  utterly 
un-Pauline,  holds  on  quite  independent  grounds,  without  such 
ulterior  motives,  that  Paul  was  set  free  from  the  recorded  Roman 
imprisonment  and  accordingly  lived  at  least  five  years  longer. 
To  these  years  (A.  D.  59-64)  Harnack  assigns  the  composition 
of  the  genuine  letters  underlying  our  present  recension,  or,  as 
he  really  should  say  according  to  his  own  exposition,  the  frag- 
ments of  letters.  Since  even  Harnack  does  not  seem  to  me  to 
prove  that  the  apostle's  death  took  place  during  the  so-called 
Neronian  persecution  of  the  Christians,  these  five  years  ought,  I 
think,  to  be  extended  to  nine,  and  since  no  one  can  deny  that 
such  a  term  of  years  gives  ample  space  for  the  composition  of 
the  letters,  this  at  once  breaks  the  force  of  all  objections  to  their 
authenticity. 

Jiilicher  thinks  that  even  if  this  be  granted  the  situation,  at 
least  of  First  Timothy  and  Titus,  is  incomprehensible;  but  this 
cannot  be  conceded.  He  overlooks  altogether  that  the  apostle 
who  originally  intended  to  return  shortly  was,  as  is  clearly  inti- 
mated in  I  Tim.  3:15,  delayed,  and  that  this  delay  sufficiently 
accounts  for  the  renewed  emphasis  and  expansion  of  the  com- 
missions given  to  Timothy.  The  intended  recall  of  Titus  (Titus 
3:12)  does  not  preclude  the  hypothesis  of  a  delay,  since  the 
apostle  had  been  taught  by  ample  experience  how  little  he  could 
with  certainty  count  on  the  execution  of  plans  that  looked  so 
far  ahead  as  spending  the  winter  at  Nicopolis,  and  since  we  can- 
not say,  with  any  degree  of  definiteness,  how  long  it  might  have 
been  before  he  could  have  sent  Artemas  or  Tychicus  to  relieve 


72         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

Titus.  The  passage  in  Titus  3:  13  clearly  shows  that  it  was  the 
journey  of  Zenas  and  ApoUos  that  induced  him  to  accompany 
their  letters  of  introduction  with  this  letter.  Strong  statements 
such  as  that  he  describes  to  Titus  in  detail  the  Cretan  heretical 
teachers,  with  whom  Titus  certainly  must  have  been  better 
acquainted  than  he  was,  prove  nothing;  for  a  reasonabl}^  unprej- 
udiced exegesis  will  show  that  Paul  simply  justifies  his  instruc- 
tions by  reference  to  the  character  of  these  heretics.  Julicher's 
arguments  concerning  the  manner  in  which  the  Pauline  pretender 
talks  about  himself  and  his  intimate  friends  carry  no  greater 
weight.  Whether  here  and  there  an  occasion  appears  for  the 
apostle  to  refer  to  his  own  apostolic  calling  or  his  past  history 
can  be  decided  only  by  detailed  exegesis.  Paul  certainly  does 
not  become  a  scoundrel  ("mz  Scha>idme7isch")  simply  because 
according  to  i  Tim.  1:15  he  feels  himself,  on  account  of  his 
persecutions  of  the  church,  "a  chief  of  sinners."  He  may 
even  then  have  served  God  with  a  clear  conscience  (2  Tim. 
1:3),  though  he  was  still  in  error.  That  Timothy,  though  he 
was  many  years  older  than  when  he  became  an  assistant  of  the 
apostle,  was  still  in  need  of  encouragement  in  order  to  be  able 
to  represent  the  authority  of  the  apostle  over  against  the 
undoubtedly  aged  presbyters  (i  Tim.  4:  12)  no  one  can  reason- 
ably doubt.  Jiilicher  explains  the  admonition  to  Timothy 
(2  Tim.  2:22)  as  meaning  that  Timothy  should  be  careful  to 
conduct  himself  properly.  But  this  view  is  rendered  untenable 
by  the  whole  context,  which  shows  the  admonition  to  be 
directed  against  the  youthful  eagerness  to  convert  those  in  error 
by  passionate  appeals  and  arguments,  a  zeal  which,  as  is  well 
known,  does  not    cease  with   a  certain  year  of  one's  life. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  add  another  to  the  many  discussions 
of  these  subjects.  I  have  intended  only  to  show  by  the  exam- 
ple of  the  latest  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament  how  criti- 
cism stands  in  relation  to  them.  It  only  repeats  the  old  argu- 
ments in  more  emphatic  words ;  and  either  does  not  trouble 
itself  about  the  counter-arguments  which  are  urged  against  it  or 
scornfully  sets  them  aside.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  so  little 
progress  is  really  made  on  so  many  points,  even  on  those  where 


THE  GEAUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES         73 

agreement  would  be  altogether  within  the  range  of  yjossibility. 
If  the  pastoral  epistles  are  actually  to  be  regarded  as  pseudon 
ymous  productions,  it  will  still  be  necessary  to  admit  that  the 
author  had  a  measurably  clear  conception  of  the  role  which  he 
meant  to  assume.  It  can  least  of  all  serve  the  purpose  of  criti- 
cism to  combine  with  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  pseudo- 
nymity  that  of  absence  of  thought.  Yet  it  is  never  weary  of 
conjecturing  that  its  pseudonymous  author  contrived  impos- 
sible and  absurd  situations,  that  he  conceived  of  the  relation 
of  Paul  to  his  friends  in  an  entirely  contradictory  fashion, 
that  he  mixed  up  the  present  and  the  future,  and  made  similar 
blunders  which  we  have  still  to  consider.  And  yet  the  whole 
plan  of  proposing  to  address  the  church  of  his  time  in  the 
name  of  the  apostle  itself  testifies  to  a  certain  boldness  of  con- 
ception which  must  have  been  accompanied  b}'  at  least  the 
simplest  literary  qualifications.  Of  course  that  does  not  in 
itself  prove  genuineness.  If  the  situation  is  conceivable,  if  the 
apostle  may  have  spoken  as  the  letters  speak,  then  naturally  the 
author  may  have  carried  his  plan  through  successfully  just  as 
the  real  apostle  may  have  written  them.  Only  the  critics  ought 
not  to  spoil  our  pleasure  in  our  New  Testament  writings  by  this 
petty,  pedantic  criticism  of  them  which  only  testifies  to  a  want 
of  inclination  to  think  their  way  somewhat  more  deeply  into 
them.  The  decision  of  the  question  of  genuineness  must  be 
sought  in  an  entirely  different  direction. 

The  first  question  concerns  the  doctrinal  errors  which  are 
combated  in  our  letters.  I  grant  that  in  connecting  them  with 
"  the  beginnings  of  gnosticism  "  very  little  has  been  accomplished. 
But  neither  has  criticism  as  yet  been  able  to  explain  these 
errors.  A  long  quest  was  made  for  a  definite  gnostic  system 
that  fitted  the  situation ;  as  none  could  be  found  it  has  been 
claimed  that,  though  the  author  wished  to  combat  the  whole 
movement,  he  did  so  only  by  allusion,  since  he  had  also  to  keep 
up  the  role  of  Paul.  Whereupon  the  critics  proceed  to  extract 
from  the  most  harmless  passages,  for  which  actual  parallels  can 
be  shown  everywhere  in  the  epistles  of  Paul,  a  polemic  against 
particular  gnostic  heretical   teachers.      But  such   polemic  can   be 


74         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

found  in  such  passages  only  if  it  has  first  been  proved  that  the 
pastoral  letters  have  these  heretics  in  mind.  But  that  is  just 
what  cannot  be  done.  Harnack  calls  the  characterization  of  the 
heretical  teachers  "  confused."  But  that  is  just  where  I  hold 
him  to  be  in  error.  On  the  contrary,  the  presumption  with 
which  one  should  first  of  all  approach  the  letters  is  that  the 
author  knows  what  he  proposes  to  combat,  and  that  even  if  he 
takes  the  role  of  Paul  and  must  therefore  deal  only  in  generali- 
ties, he  must  be  fully  confident  of  striking  the  evil  at  its  heart. 
In  fact,  however,  his  characterization  of  the  then  existing  errors 
of  doctrine  is  always  the  same,  even  to  his  favorite  expressions ; 
the  position  which  he  takes  toward  them  is  always  the  same  ;  one 
should  be  drawn  into  no  discussion  with  them,  one  should  sim- 
ply turn  them  off,  one  should  set  over  against  this  unsound  doc- 
trine the  only  sound  system,  which  holds  fast  to  the  old  gospel, 
the  truth  of  which  the  author  therefore  repeatedly  affirms.  I  do 
not  know  that  at  any  place  or  time  in  the  history  of  the  ancient 
church  gnosticism  was  combated  in  this  fashion. 

If,  indeed,  the  author  of  i  Tim.  4  :  1-4,  for  reasons  which 
are  clear  enough  in  this  connection,  speaks  of  an  error  of  doc- 
trine which  he  fears  is  coming  in  the  future,  but  no  trace  of 
which  is  to  be  seen  in  what  he  says  elsewhere  of  the  false  doc- 
trines of  the  present  (z.  e.,  the  period  in  which  he  is  assumed  to 
have  written) ,  and  if  nevertheless  one  finds  in  it  a  characteristic 
sign  of  this  present,  then  of  course  everything  is  in  confusion. 
If  the  author  finds  the  sanctimoniousness  under  the  cloak  of 
which  the  unhealthy  zeal  for  teaching  is  concealed  (2  Tim. 
3  :  1-7)  so  dangerous  on  this  account,  because  the  immorality  to 
be  expected  in  the  last  days  will  eagerly  seize  upon  a  doctrine 
which  keeps  the  religious  interest  active  without  requiring  true 
inner  renewal,  there  is  still  in  this  position  no  untenable  mixture 
of  present  and  future  to  be  found.  If  the  author  of  2  Tim. 
2:  16-18  points  to  the  fact  that  to  argue  with  these  persons 
incites  them  to  more  and  more  impious  assertions,  and  illus- 
trates this  fact  by  a  single  example,  and  if  a  characterization  of 
the  false  doctrines  combated  in  the  letters  is  then  found  in  that 
example  it  is  impossible  to  gain  a  correct  picture   of   it.      If  the 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES         75 

author  of  Titus  1:15  f.  is  giving  a  characterization  of  the  unbe- 
lieving Jews,  to  whose  myths  and  commandments  of  men  some 
are  turning  back  (vs.  14),  and  if  in  that  teaching  the  false  doc- 
trines of  the  post-apostolic  time  are  regarded  as  characterized, 
then  it  is  not  surprising  if  the  picture  turns  out  confused.  It 
seems  at  present  to  be  granted  that  the  i//euSwi/vju,os  yvwo-is  (i  Tim. 
6  :  20)  is  not  a  catchword  adopted  by  our  author  from  Hege- 
sippus,  but  one  which  Eusebius  repeated  after  him.  But  when 
Jiilicher  and  Harnack  cannot  yet  tear  themselves  away  from  the 
idea  that  the  avn^eWs  refer  to  the  famous  work  of  Marcion  they 
forget  that  this  interpretation  is  rendered  exegetically  impos- 
sible by  the  fact  that  this  expression  is  joined  with  /Se^rjXov;  under 
one  article.  After  all  has  been  said  it  is  impossible  to  claim  that 
criticism  has  succeeded  in  really  explaining  the  polemic  of  our 
letters  from  the  point  of  view  of  contemporaneous  history. 

The  same  is  true  respecting  the  internal  condition  of  the 
churches  which  is  presupposed  in  our  letters,  or  which  it  is  their 
purpose  to  bring  about.  Despite  the  splendid  service  which  Har- 
nack has  done  in  clearing  up  the  history  of  the  development  of 
the  government  of  the  church,  I  have  looked  in  vain  for  any  new 
light  from  him  on  this  question.  The  very  first  redaction  of  the 
pastoral  epistles,  which  is  still  quite  distinct  from  additions  of  a 
much  later  date,  is  regarded  as  revealing  the  presence  of  an 
ecclesiastical  rank  with  special  rights  and  duties.  It  is  abso- 
lutely impossible  for  me  to  discover  anything  of  the  sort  in  our 
letters.  When  the  church  assures  support  to  the  presbyters  who 
also  give  themselves  diligently  to  teaching  (i  Tim.  5:  17  f.) 
exactly  as  in  i  Cor.,  chap.  9,  and,  for  the  same  reasons  that  are 
given  in  that  passage,  I  can  find  in  that  only  the  endeavor,  per- 
vading all  three  letters,  by  the  closest  possible  union  of  the  teach- 
ing and  ruling  functions  in  the  church,  to  promote  the  main- 
tenance of  sound  doctrine  made  so  necessary  by  the  evident 
neglect  of  the  charismatic  gift  and  the  spread  of  false  doctrine. 
I  can  find  nothing  of  the  other  "rights"  which  are  assigned  to 
them.  Jiilicher,  again,  speaks  of  the  division  of  the  church  into 
clergy  and  laity,  accomplished  in  fact,  even  if  not  in  name, 
which   he   founds    upon    a   reference    to   the   passage    discussed 


76         PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  INQUIRY  CONCERNING 

above.  It  makes  strongly  against  this  view  that  everywhere 
only  moral  integrity  and  uprightness  in  family  life  is  demanded 
of  the  officers  in  the  church,  and  that  nowhere  is  a  higher  dig- 
nity or  special  grace  for  their  office  spoken  of.  According  to 
Harnack  the  letters  assign  to  the  disciples  of  the  apostle  a  posi- 
tion for  which  no  analogy  can  be  found  in  the  first  century. 
But  the  chief  duty  which  is  continually  laid  upon  them  is  simply 
that  of  instruction  and  admonition.  They  are  to  have  charge  of 
the  organization  of  the  church  and  to  guard  against  mistakes  in 
the  selection  of  officers  of  the  congregation.  The  qualifications 
necessary  for  such  officers  are  to  be  determined  only  by  the 
church  itself.  All  other  regulations  for  the  church  services 
(i  Tim.,  chap.  2)  or  the  enrollment  of  the  widows  of  the  church 
(i  Tim.,  chap.  5)  belong  to  the  church  as  such. 

The  one  thing  that  goes  beyond  that  is  the  discipline  of  the 
presbyters,  which,  according  to  i  Tim.  5:  19  f.,  is  assigned  to 
Timothy  in  the  more  mature  conditions  of  the  Ephesian  church. 
Well,  to  whom  ought  it  to  have  been  assigned,  as  long  as  no 
monarchical  episcopate  3'et  existed  ?  And  of  this  not  the  least 
trace  appears  in  our  letters.  Even  here  no  special  method  of 
procedure  is  prescribed,  but  on  the  well-known  Old  Testament 
rule  it  is  affirmed  that  no  process  may  be  instituted  against  the 
presbyters  without  two  or  three  witnesses  to  establish  the  accu- 
sation, since  such  a  process,  even  if  it  should  end  with  their 
acquittal,  would  steadily  undermine  their  position  in  the  church. 
But  the  AoiTTot'  of  vs.  20  are,  as  the  context  would  lead  us  to 
expect,  not  the  laity  in  contrast  with  the  clergy,  but  the  other 
presbyters.  The  so-called  ordination  of  Timothy,  in  connection 
with  which  there  is  repeated  reference  to  the  prophetic  words 
that  designated  him  to  be  the  helper  of  the  apostles,  cannot  be 
intended  to  introduce  an  ecclesiastical  institution,  especially  as 
in  the  case  of  Titus  there  is  no  reference  to  anything  of  the 
kind.  The  yapLa^xa  of  which  mention  is  made  in  connection  with 
it  (i  Tim.  4:  14)  is,  according  to  2  Tim.  i  :  6,  the  charisma  of 
teaching,  not  a  special  grace  that  goes  with  the  office.  More- 
over, unless  the  Book  of  Acts  is  to  be  regarded  as  entirely 
valueless,  the  laying  on  of  hands  is  an  ancient  apostolic  custom. 


THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PAULINE  EPISTLES         77 

It  is  certain  that  there  are  to  be  seen  in  the  Ephesian  church  — 
but  only  there  —  evidences  of  advanced  developmen-t  in  church 
life,  tendencies  to  confessional  formuke,  fragments  of  an  ancient 
church  psalmody,  traces  of  fixed  liturgical  formulae.  What  do 
we  know  about  the  period  when  these  began  to  take  shape  in 
the  church  ? 

This  leads  us  to  discuss  the  age   in  which,  according  to   the 
view  of  criticism,  our  letters  must  have  been  written.     Jiilicher 
places  them  ca.  125  ;    Harnack,  ca.  90-110;   the  difference  is  not 
very  significant,   as   Harnack  also  accepts  still    later  interpola- 
tions which  take  us  down  beyond  the  age  of  Marcion.      But  Har- 
nack has  established  the   fact  that   Polycarp  already  knew  and 
used    these    like    other    Pauline    letters.     The    question  whether 
Ignatius,  whose    letters  are  essentially    contemporaneous    with 
Polycarp,  knew  them  is  unessential,  though  I  believe  that  it  must 
be  answered  in  the  affirmative.     The   Barnabas  letter,  which   in 
Harnack's  view  is  essentially  later,  does  not  enter  into  the  ques- 
tion, although  I  think  that  its  knowledge  of  our   letters  can  be 
proved.      Of  the  so-called  first  letter  of  Clement,  Harnack  himself 
does  not  venture  to  maintain  with  Ewald  that  in  the  "undeniable 
genealogical  relationship"  the  priority  belongs  to  it.      How  one 
can  maintain,  after  all  has  been  said,  that  the  attestation  of  the 
pastoral  epistles  is  less  satisfactory  than  that  of  the  other  letters 
of  Paul,  I  cannot  understand.     That  Marcion  did  not  have  them 
in  his  canon  is  very  far  from  proving  that  he  did  not  know  them. 
In  the  first  place,  they  were  letters  to  individuals,  and  could  not 
lay   claim  to  universal   acceptance   in  the  church.     The  case  is 
somewhat  different  with  the  letter  to  Philemon,  in  so  far  as  it  was 
inseparably  joined  to  the   Colossian  letter,  and  yet   Marcion  has 
separated  it  from  that  letter  and  placed  it  at  the  end  of  his  list. 
When  we  observe  in  what  an  artificial  way  even  as  late  as  the 
third  century  justification  was  constantly  found  for  having  taken 
into  the  canon  of  the  church  at  large  letters  directed  to  individ- 
ual churches,  we  understand  how  the   Muratorian  canon  is  com- 
pelled expressly  to   declare   that   these   letters,  though    directed 
only  to  individuals,  had  been  promoted   to   the   position  of  nor- 
mative doctrinal  writings  of  the  church  and  holy  books.     When 


78  THE  GENUINENESS  OF  THE  PA  ULINE  EPISTLES 

now  Marcion  made  the  first  attempt  to  limit  the  number  of 
writings  which  were  to  be  regarded  as  normative  in  the  church, 
it  was  only  natural,  since  he  was  restrained  by  no  ecclesiastical 
tradition,  that  he  should  exclude  these  private  letters,  which  were 
inconvenient  for  him  since  their  polemic  had  been  at  an  early 
period  brought  to  bear  upon  him  and  other  gnostics.  But  this 
implies  no  doubt  of  their  coming  from  the  apostle  from  whom 
they  purported  to  come  and  whose  other  letters  he  also  corrected 
to  suit  his  purpose.  The  decision  respecting  their  genuineness 
therefore  must  be  based  on  internal  evidence. 

Moreover  I  believe  that  I  have  shown  how  far  short  criticism 
has  come  of  being  able,  on  the  basis  of  the  false  doctrines  com- 
bated in  them,  and  of  the  condition  of  the  church  which  they 
presuppose,  to  determine  with  certainty  a  time  in  which  they 
must  have  originated. 

I  have  not  proposed  to  offer  anything  new  in  the  foregoing 
discussion.  I  have  only  set  forth  the  views  which  are  expressed 
in  my  Einleitiing  in  das  Neue  Testament,  just  appearing  in  a  third 
edition  (Berlin,  1897),  ^^^  which  have  long  approved  them- 
selves to  me  as  correct.  I  have  not  hesitated  where  it  seems  to 
me  that  I  have  in  that  work  written  clearly  and  strongly  to 
repeat  now  and  then  the  very  words.  However  I  trust  that  in 
this  survey  many  things  have  been  put  in  a  clearer  light,  and 
that  stimulus  has  been  given  to  a  renewed  consideration  of  my 
view  by  its  more  thorough  defense  in  many  important  points. 
What  I  have  said  is  based  on  a  constantly  renewed,  thorough, 
and  detailed  exegesis  of  the  Pauline  epistles,  in  which  it  is  my 
judgment  that  the  criticism  of  the  present  day  is  altogether  too 
deficient.  They  who  wish  to  acquaint  themselves  with  this  exe- 
getical  work  as  a  whole  may  now  find  it  gathered  together  in  my 
Paulinische  Briefe.  It  may  be  that  this  renewed  consideration  of 
it  will  remove  many  prejudices  and  cause  many  critical  results 
claimed  as  final  to  appear  exceedingly  doubtful. 


DATE  DUE 


BS2650.4.W42 

The  present  status  of  the  inquiry 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


